Tucker said when she contacted the DWP in 2019 to inform them she was returning to work, she was told by officials she would not be penalised if her total earnings, averaged over a 12-month period, did not exceed carer’s allowance earnings limits.
Many thousands of unpaid carers, like Tucker, have been asked to pay back often huge sums in recent years for inadvertently breaching earnings limits rules for carer’s allowance.
Unpaid carer wins overpayment penalty case against DWP Andrea Tucker has overturned the demand for £4,600 in carer’s allowance overpayments for alleged breaches in benefit rules.
A DWP representative told the court the earnings breaches were not an issue of “fraud or dishonesty” on Tucker’s part but a “technical and administrative” issue relating to internal DWP rules about whether her earnings could be averaged in this way.
The benefit has become notorious for the harsh punishments imposed on carers who overstep its weekly earnings limits and the failure of the DWP to alert carers when breaches happen, meaning they can unknowingly build up huge debts.
