Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 6 June 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the introduction and operation of Carer Support Payment, whether it has made an assessment of the potential merits of taking steps to prevent the accumulation of debt among carers in receipt of Carer's Allowance in Scotland due to (a) delayed investigation and (b) non-investigation of overpayment alerts.
We have taken on board lessons from Carer’s Allowance in designing Carer Support Payment to better prevent overpayments. Information on earnings rules and when to report changes are much clearer. We are making better use of the ability to average out carers’ earnings, and using data from HMRC and scheduled reviews for self-employed carers to check and track carers’ earnings. Our systems use automated decision making for the most straightforward applications, allowing more time and resource to focus on complex cases and earnings processes. We pay Carer Support Payment four weekly in arrears as standard, reducing the potential for overpayments by allowing more time for a change of circumstances to be reported and reflected in a carer’s award. As part of the case transfer process, we also have processes in place to check earnings once carer’s awards are in payment to reduce the risk of inheriting existing overpayments. We are continuing to take feedback from carers and stakeholders to consider how we can continue to improve our earnings processes.