Department for Work and Pensions

6. Mr and Mrs P complain about the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). They explain their Universal Credit (UC) was incorrectly calculated multiple times because DWP’s system failed to recognise they were entitled to the underlying entitlement of Carer’s Allowance only. This entitlement would have allowed them to receive various discounts. Mr and Mrs P say the £250 DWP awarded to them in recognition of its mistakes is insufficient to compensate for the difficulties they faced due to these miscalculations and that it has failed to acknowledge the impact of its error.

7. Mr and Mrs P state the incorrect calculation of UC affected their council tax and housing costs. They received additional bills for council tax and housing, which they had to cover through borrowing money due to the reduction in benefits. Additionally, they tell us they lost carer's discounts because DWP instructed them to stop claiming Carer's Allowance. Mr and Mrs P explain this has been stressful, and they remain worried that similar errors could occur in the future.

8. Mr and Mrs P seek recognition from DWP of the wider impact of its mistakes and for it to provide a more appropriate financial remedy.

About Carer’s Allowance

9. Carer’s Allowance is a benefit for those caring for another person for at least 35 hours a week. Claiming Carer’s Allowance can affect other benefits a person may be entitled to, including UC, which will be reduced by an amount equal to the Carer’s Allowance.

10. Some people have an underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance only. This means that you qualify for Carer's Allowance but cannot be paid it because of the overlapping benefits rule, where a person qualifies for two or more benefits, but can only be paid one of these benefits at a time. Individuals in this circumstance may still want to claim their underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance as they will receive the monetary benefit from Carer’s Allowance should an overlapping claim be closed.

About the complaint

11. Mrs P made a claim for Carer’s Allowance (in relation to her role as Mr P’s carer) in August 2016. No payment for this benefit was made to her as she was already claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) which is an overlapping benefit with Carer’s Allowance. Mrs P had an ongoing claim for UC during this period, which was made up of her standard allowance, housing, Limited Capacity for Work Related Activity (LCWRA), and carer elements, minus her ESA payments.

12. Mr P made a claim for Carer’s Allowance in July 2019 (in relation to his role as Mrs P’s carer). Mr P had an underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance only, because he received a higher rate of ESA than Carer’s Allowance.

13. Commencing in May 2020, there were five periods in which Mr and Mrs P’s UC calculation was incorrect because of the underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance. Mr and Mrs P raised a complaint about this on the first occasion in which it happened through their UC journal in May 2020, explaining they had only been paid half of their UC, and believed this was because of an error related to their underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance. DWP responded in June 2020, providing a back payment of UC to Mr and Mrs P.

14. In September 2020 a deduction for Carer’s Allowance was made again and Mr and Mrs P complained to DWP via their UC journal. This deduction was put right by DWP several days later.

15. A further deduction for Carer’s Allowance was made in November 2020, and after Mr and Mrs P queried this through their UC journal. DWP put this right in December 2020. After this, an eight-month period lapsed with no incorrect deductions for Carer’s Allowance.

16. In August 2021, another deduction for Carer’s Allowance was made, and Mr and Mrs P complained to DWP via their UC journal. DWP responded and put this right in October 2021. DWP advised in a call in October 2021 that Mr and Mrs P add a change to their joint claim to state they were not caring for someone, so the Carer’s Allowance element could be removed. Mrs P agreed she had never cared for anyone, and this should not be on her joint claim. DWP stated it would remove this as Mrs P indicated she was unable to do this herself. DWP processed this return of funds to Mr and Mrs P from their missing payment from August 2021.

17. In November 2021 Mrs P reported in her account that she had stopped caring for Mr P.

18. Mr and Mrs P contacted the Carer’s Allowance Unit in January 2022 and asked for both Carer’s Allowance claims to be closed due to the impact this was having on their UC claim. DWP closed these claims the same day.

19. Another deduction for Carer’s Allowance was made in January 2022, as the system assumed Mr and Mrs P had been paid Carer’s Allowance again and deducted the UC payment. Mr and Mrs P raised this the next day, and DWP resolved it two days later.

20. No further deduction for Carer’s Allowance was made after this point, relevant to the period we have agreed to consider.

21. In June 2022, Mr and Mrs P complained through their journal stating they had experienced systematic failings. A complaints manager called Mr and Mrs P in August 2022 to discuss their complaint and called again later in the month to verbally issue a decision. DWP told Mr and Mrs P the UC system could see the underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance and assumed this was a payment they received. It explained the Carer’s Allowance element needed to remain on the system because if the ESA claim stopped, Carer’s Allowance would become payable. DWP stated the system could not be changed, but a manager should check the case to ensure deductions were not made. The complaint was upheld, and DWP offered Mr and Mrs P £100 in recognition of the mistakes and poor customer service.

22. The Independent Case Examiner (ICE) investigated Mr and Mrs P’s complaint and wrote to them in November 2023. It upheld the complaint about DWP’s repeated failures to check if Carer’s Allowance was in payment or not to prevent deductions in Mr and Mrs P’S UC from May 2020 to January 2022. It established there had been five assessment periods where a deduction was incorrectly made from the UC payments because the system took into account payments of Carer’s Allowance which had not been made.

23. ICE explained on these occasions the Case Manager failed to identify the issue and manually override the system. It stated it was confident all the UC payments had been backdated, and as the Carer’s Allowance claims had been closed in January 2022, this would no longer cause an issue. It stated DWP should offer Mr and Mrs P £250 (A further £150 to the £100 already offered by DWP) in remedy to this complaint.

27. Mr and Mrs P have asked us to consider whether DWP has appropriately remedied their complaint. We know that a failing has occurred as DWP has accepted Mr and Mrs P’s UC was reduced on five occasions, as its system did not recognise they were only entitled to the underlying entitlement of Carer’s Allowance and never received a monetary benefit. We have considered this complaint, including the failing, the impact caused to Mr and Mrs P, and the actions taken by DWP to put right this issue. We have found that DWP has done enough to remedy this complaint, and we are not requesting it takes further action.

DWP’s remedy of £250 offered to Mr and Mrs P in resolution to this complaint

28. We understand Mr and Mrs P have experienced financial detriment, and emotional distress because of the errors with the UC system. We appreciate they have experienced ongoing worry that the error would occur again. Mr and Mrs P expressed concerns that this issue may have occurred more than the five times and so we have checked their UC log between May 2020 and January 2022.

29. We have not looked at the period before May 2020 as we consider this to be out of time, given no formal complaint was escalated to DWP or ICE during this period from August 2016 to May 2020. We have also not looked at the period from January 2022 onwards as no formal complaint has been raised about this period, and so this would not be ready for us to look at.

30. We have found this issue occurred on the five occasions detailed in the ICE report, meaning Mr and Mrs P’s UC was wrongfully deducted in May 2020, September 2020, November 2020, August 2021, and January 2022. Mr and Mrs P have told us their UC payments have all been backdated by DWP to account for these errors.

31. As the UC payments have been backdated, this means that in terms of the amount of UC paid, Mr and Mrs P are in the position that would have been in had the deductions not been made.

32. Mr and Mrs P told us they suffered further financial losses due to being without the correct amount of money at the relevant time. They told us they had to borrow money from family, on which they paid interest. Unfortunately, as these were cash payments, they were unable to provide evidence of this. This means we have not seen evidence to support this claim of loss and have not recommended DWP reimburse it.

33. Mr and Mrs P have told us they spent time pressuring DWP to resolve the issue and felt at times they were being pushed between departments. They say they were often told someone would respond to them within 24 hours and this only happened on one or two occasions when Mr and Mrs P had already called DWP. They explained they felt DWP didn't believe them or thought they didn't know what they were talking about, which made the issues they were experiencing more stressful.

34. Mr and Mrs P also told us they missed the opportunity to go out on day trips and use discounts they were entitled to through claiming Carer’s Allowance. We looked at whether DWP had done enough to recognise the impact this failing has caused to Mr and Mrs P.

35. DWP acknowledged its error and recognised it should offer a further remedy to Mr and Mrs P. After ICE requested this amount be increased, DWP offered a goodwill payment of £250 to Mr and Mrs P in resolution to this complaint.

36. We acknowledge the emotional distress and worry Mr and Mrs P experienced because of the deductions. It must have been incredibly worrying to find their payments were less than they should have been and, given how many times it happened, it is understandable that they worried it might happen again without notice. We have therefore considered whether DWP has done enough to remedy the injustice.

37. DWP’s guidance ‘financial redress for maladministration: staff guide’ is what DWP should use to determine how much, if any, financial remedy to pay. It provides three payment categories into which an individual can fall when being awarded an ex-gratia special payment as a result of maladministration. Mr and Mrs P have been awarded a category 3 consolatory payment of £250. The staff guide states a special payment may be considered under this category where the customer has suffered injustice or hardship arising from maladministration. Consolatory payments usually range between £50 and £500, although lower or higher payments may be appropriate having considered the individual circumstances of a case, in the context of the guiding principles. Under this category the guidance indicates that ‘consolatory payments usually range between £25 and £500’. This range is similar to level 2 of our Severity of Injustice scale.

38. By agreeing to pay the redress ICE recommended, we consider DWP has recognised the impact of its mistakes, and we are glad to see it has done so. Our finding is that this redress to be sufficient to put right the injustice caused to Mr and Mrs P in line with its own policy.

39. We have also considered the ongoing and wider impact of this maladministration. This is because Mr and Mrs P told us they remained worried similar errors could occur to them in the future. They also explained as an outcome they wanted DWP to recognise the wider impact of its mistakes as this may have happened to other people too.

40. We have considered this carefully, including that we have completed several internal checks to see if we have had similar complaints about this issue. We have also asked DWP for evidence this issue may have occurred to other UC claimants with an underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance. We have found no other cases received by the PHSO about this issue, and DWP has explained to us that it is unable to provide these details due to the way it records reasons for complaints. It told us this matter had been escalated to a senior level, and all avenues had been explored, however it would be unable to provide further data.

41. We have addressed this directly with Mr and Mrs P, who have clarified that they no longer claim UC, as Mr P has taken out his private pension, and they have no future plans to re-apply. This means there is no future possibility the issue could re-occur to Mr and Mrs P. They also clarified they feel by bringing the complaint to us they have done what they can to highlight this problem, and they have helped other people by doing so. We therefore feel there is no reason to delay in progressing this case.

42. DWP’s financial remedy is in line with what we would expect it to offer to put right the injustice caused to Mr and Mrs P. We have therefore not upheld the complaint and will take no further action.

1. This report sets out our decision on Mrs P’s complaint about DWP. We are sorry to hear of the impact these issues have caused to Mrs P and her husband, Mr P. We appreciate the incorrect calculations of Universal Credit (UC) they experienced has caused them great stress.

2. After careful review of the available information, we have found that DWP has already done what we would expect of it in putting right the injustice caused to Mr and Mrs P.

3. We have identified during our investigation that there was a failing by DWP, which led to a financial and emotional impact to Mr and Mrs P. Namely, we found five occasions on which the miscalculation of their underlying Carer’s Allowance entitlement led to a reduction in their Universal Credit between May 2020 and January 2022. This meant on each of these five occasions, Mr and Mrs P could not pay for amenities including their housing costs, causing them to borrow the funds from family and friends. Mr and Mrs P have expressed how stressful this was for them. Mrs P has also expressed to us that she was very ill during this period, with several hospitalisations, and we were sorry to hear of this.

4. We found DWP has done enough already to put Mr and Mrs P in the position they would be in had the failing not occurred and to acknowledge the stress the deductions caused them.

5. We have therefore not upheld this complaint about DWP and will not make further recommendations to it. We explain our decision below.