Commons committee chair says DWP repeatedly failed to prioritise the vulnerable and was slow to fix errors
The government’s most senior welfare official has been accused of presiding over a “culture of complacency” that led to thousands of unpaid carers inadvertently running up huge benefit debts.
Debbie Abrahams, the chair of the work and pensions select committee, said the Department for Work and Pensions had repeatedly failed to prioritise vulnerable people, was unwilling to learn from its mistakes, and slow to fix errors.
Abrahams said she found it “difficult to have confidence” in the DWP’s permanent secretary, Sir Peter Schofield, who had promised MPs more than six years ago that he would fix critical flaws in the carer’s allowance benefit but had failed to do so.
An award-winning Guardian investigation revealed hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers, most already in poverty, were landed with large bills for overpayments running into thousands of pounds as a result of DWP shortcomings. Several hundred carers are estimated to have also received fraud convictions.
