Tag: benefits

Open letter to the DWP

Apr 18th, 2024
To everyone at the DWP,

I’m just checking in, it’s been a tough few weeks – how are you all holding up? I bet some of you are working overtime. As a fellow communications professional, I especially feel sorry for the poor PRs having to deal with those pesky journalists asking questions about those tiresome unpaid carers.

What is their problem?! They made mistakes and now they must pay. You are just doing your jobs, right?

Well… the thing is, I don’t think most people see it that way. I realise you have to project a certain toughness, but the words that spring to mind on this are: ‘cruel’ ‘incompetence’ and ‘borderline entrapment’. Not sure that’s a brand image you should be aiming for.

I realise I haven’t introduced myself, I’m Laura, I’m a communications manager and an unpaid carer. Don’t worry, before you fire up your laptops to send me a threatening letter, I earn ‘too much’ to claim the carer’s allowance. In fact, to put it bluntly, my taxes pay for these benefits. I’m fine with that, that’s the deal. What I’m not fine with, is standing by when you’re facing this crisis but fear not! I have compiled a list of actions you could take to resolve matters. You’re welcome:
- Fix your tech. I’m not a techie but there must be a way for your systems to flag overpayments and mistakes so you can resolve them early. Oh wait, you have one of those already? Great! So maybe, next time it happens do something about it? That way, you spot the mistakes early and these unpaid carers don’t get into debt or go to the press, you’ll also save money on legal bills and crisis comms consultants. Incidentally, just putting it out there, you might catch fraudsters earlier too. How’s recovering our £50 million from that crime gang going, by the way? It took you a while to catch them too, I believe. Not hating, just sayin’!
- Change the system. Do you have to be so harsh towards unpaid carers? I mean I get it, they are SO annoying with all the caring for their loved ones, being the scaffolding for the social care system and the NHS while your colleagues over at the DHSC are busy diligently ignoring them. Why can’t they just suffer in silence and live on the £80 a week you so generously give them. Benefit scroungers, the lot of them! It’s not like they were trying to get whatever jobs they could to contribute to the system and make ends meet… Oops! Sorry- that’s actually what they were doing. My bad. Anyway, I just feel for the optics of the situation – not because it is the right thing to do (LOL!)- maybe drop the ‘cliff edge’ policy?
- Simplify the system. All this business is very complicated isn’t it. I realise admin is basically your jobs, and you all must love it. That’s cool, you do you. But us unpaid carers are a tad busy keeping the people we care for alive with no help (long story- you’ll find out all about it one day). Would it be an idea to make things easier to reduce errors in the first place?
- Increase the Carer’s Allowance. This is a bit sensitive for you, I understand, but I have to ask – could you live off £81.90 a week? I’d venture to guess that is probably what you spend on Pret lunches and coffees in a month. I used to spend about that back when I had a life in London, I love that place. I understand we must keep Pret A Manger going at all costs but if the Carer’s Allowance isn’t meant to be a living wage or replace loss of earnings, what is it meant to do? Why give a benefit that has no benefits? One to consider over a flat white.
- Finally, a *tiny* point to the comms team. Please don’t call unpaid carers ‘heroes’. I know it is tempting, but it’ll go to our heads and we’ll start making mad demands like a national strategy for carers. We can’t have that. I’m certainly not a hero, I’m just a normal person trying to do my best. So drop the H word, yeah?
I think that’s enough to be getting on with, I’d send you an invoice for my services but you’re better off saving that money to persecute 92-year-olds with dementia – GO YOU! Fighting the good fight!

Best,

L
The 12,000

Oct 26th, 2023
I’m tired.

Not because of jet lag from my recent work trip or my constant working and caring. I’m tired of reading the same research reports that shed light on the awful treatment of unpaid carers in the UK. Carers UK recently released their latest State of Caring Survey 2023 looking at unpaid carers’ finances. It makes for shocking reading. The situation gets worse every year, and the statistics in the report don’t even seem to register with anyone anymore. So let me share some of the quotes from it, perhaps that will be more impactful:
- “I’ve lost weight because I can’t afford to eat.”
- “I couldn’t afford my internet bill, explained to them. I need it to get medication, food, heating and light, contacting in an emergency and they cut me off, I was literally crying on the phone to them, telling them it is my lifeline, they didn’t care.”
- “I have cut down on washing my hair. No baths, only showers, filling the toilet cistern with rainwater, cutting back on food and fuel for the car, cutting back journeys by car – no socialising.”
- “I am regularly skipping meals. We have skipped lunch for the last nine months. Now I sometimes cook just for my husband, and I skip dinner. Sometimes I have cereal for dinner. Sometimes I have a jar of baby food. It is 95p and often reduced further. I can eat baby food for dinner to save money.”
- “We have less showers, wash clothes less but my daughter has no bowel or bladder control and IBD so end up changing her bedding most nights so the washing machine is on every day. I lie in bed at night thinking of ways to make £2 feed us both the following day so I don’t have to use the credit card.“
- “I am burning through my life savings to live.”
- “No spare cash and credit card debts increasing.”
Does this hit home? These are people caring for their loved ones because our truly awful and inadequate social care system and NHS can’t. They are propping up the systems and being driven into abject poverty for doing so. Is this the society we want to live in?

I’d like to focus on the last two statements, as this may resonate with the not-yet-carers reading this (welcome and thank you for getting this far). About 12,000 people a day become unpaid carers in the UK; those people had jobs, a life they had control over, savings, hobbies, and aspirations. They will now likely have to give up all of that. How long will they be able to survive financially without a job? How long would *you*? It is a crucial question that we should all be asking ourselves. When it is your turn to be part of those 12,000 people a day becoming unpaid carers, what will you do financially?

It is imperative you plan for that eventuality. Here are some thought starters for you:
- Research how you can get Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) should you ever need it. This enables you to make health or financial decisions on behalf of the person you care for if they’re unable to. It cost me £1,000 to do that for my grandmother with a local solicitor as my situation was a tad complicated, although the typical fee is £82.
- Research what kind of benefits you could be entitled to depending on your situation, and see if you’d be able to live off them (spoiler alert: the answer is ‘no’). Carers UK has very helpful guides: https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/
- Speak to local private care agencies to find what their rates and processes are. Pre-vetting some of them will save you a lot of precious time when the time comes to hire them – should you be able to afford it. Do the same for local care homes, you will almost definitely not be able to afford them but at least you’ll get the shock out of the way and make alternate plans.
- Look into meal delivery services and other services that could be helpful for less mobile people.
The biggest tip would be to start saving. Save what you can, put it into an account. and don’t touch it until you need it. All the things I list above are expensive but necessary as the state you pay taxes to will not help you. Be very clear on that. Do not expect it. If you do get some government assistance, it will be inadequate and inconsistent at best. You must plan now so you deal with whatever comes without being completely overwhelmed.

If you’re lucky enough to not need these measures, then you’ll have some extra savings to spend on what you like… and you could even donate some of it to a carers charity!

Before you start furiously googling and planning, take a minute to sign this petition if you live in the UK, your future unpaid carer self will thank you: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/640062

You can also read the Carers UK report here: https://www.carersuk.org/press-releases/family-members-caring-for-loved-ones-forced-deeper-into-poverty-by-high-cost-of-living-and-restrictive-carer-s-allowance/
Go north and multiply?

Oct 5th, 2023

It’s only the middle of the week and I’m already furious. More than my usual baseline (see my blog on being fuelled by rage here.)

I’m furious about a statement a moronic minister has made at a recent political conference. He suggested that people in the UK should have more children so that they can care for the rising ageing population. I read the article, which made me even more mad, he is also considering cutting the number of care visas because they’re not considered ‘high skilled’ enough.

To recap, he wants us to have more kids we can’t afford, cut down the number of care workers even more, and expect us to care for our elders for free. I’m not sure who this message appeals to, but even for a populist statement, this one makes no sense.

He wants to reduce the number of care visas, mainly because they’re ‘foreigners’ that we apparently ‘can’t look after’ despite the fact they’re coming to the UK to work, so will pay taxes and will probably be looking after all your elderly relatives so you don’t have to. I looked it up, to qualify for a Health and Care Worker visa, you must be a qualified doctor, nurse, health professional or adult social care professional. Hardly ‘low skilled’.

We also need them, there are approximately 165,000 vacancies in the social care sector. And this guy wants to cut visas. This is why the caring agency I hire to provide two and half hours of paid help a week struggles to fit that into their weekly rota and charge me a fortune for it.

Among the many flaws in this idiotic idea, is the fact that by 2040, about 1 in 6 of the UK population will already have to balance their job at some point in their lives to provide care to their loved one. They will probably have to give up their job or reduce their hours, losing their pension contributions during that time. If they have to give up their job they will have to claim benefits, and in the unlikely event they the whopping £76 a week of Carer’s Allowance, will be labelled ‘scroungers’ and ‘unwilling to work’ for doing so by the very politicians calling for these cuts. Cutting care visas and encouraging people to have more children will only increase the chances of that happening.

These types of stories are indicative of the total contempt the government has for unpaid carers and the real work they do. We prop up the system and now the government expects even more people to provide the care we’re unqualified to give and that we pay for in our taxes. The only solution is to fix the social care system and the NHS- but that is really hard, unpopular, and will require actual experts to tackle – not power hungry ministers that haven’t got a clue.

These policies will only help to create a nation of poor unpaid carers, which nobody wants. This is not about which political party to support, I don’t care who fixes it. But it needs to be addressed seriously and with a willingness to understand the issues, not make populist claims that appeal to their base. I don’t even care if they use AI to find a way to fix social care – it might also be able to help the government figure out how to get trains from London to Manchester while they’re at it.

Rant over- thanks for reading if you made it this far. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

References :

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/02/families-should-have-more-children-to-care-for-ageing-uk-population-minister-says

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66998692

https://news.sky.com/story/carers-struggle-to-find-support-for-loved-ones-amid-enormous-staff-shortage-in-adult-care-sector-12835867

https://www.aon.com/unitedkingdom/media-room/articles/caregiving-responsibility-set-to-increase.jsp

Tag: benefits

Open letter to the DWP

The 12,000

Go north and multiply?