Under caution meeting

Benefits, finances and funding
1

Hello Everyone,

I desperately need some advice.

Approximately 3 years ago my partner and I applied for carers allowance due to my disability.

The problem we had at the time of application is we had very little information because our flat got badly flooded meaning we lost all paper work, wage slips, etc. My partner was on statutory maternity pay and border line postnatal depression however because we lost all our paperwork, bank logins etc during the application we really didnt have exact figures for everything so we took a rough guess as we thought the SMP was roughly the same amount…

About 4 months later my partner went back to part time employment and by this time we were able to gather our financial documents again. We decided at the time to write a letter in notifying them of a change of circumstances, we also updated things like working tax credits etc and we have done so every year.

We also assumed that when you inform one department of DWP it would also filter through the rest of the departments anyway, boy are we wrong.

The monies also got paid into my account and not my partner’s because of the mortgage etc coming out of my account.

Because nothing was heard back after we sent a letter in, my partner also totally forgot all about it because the funds were going into my account.

3 years later we have now been notified of a meeting under caution happening early October.

Its really taking a tole on my health and I am so worried about my partner…like seriously worried… :frowning:

Ive tried to work out the overpayment amount as we haven’t got the letters yet and I wreckon it must be in or around 10k of overpayment.

We may have made a mistake but under no circumstances was any of this intentional.

We are willing to cooperate with them in anyway we can, by the looks of it we made the administration mistake and we are willing to pay for this mistake and of course pay the money back with no hesitation. We have some savings of 5k to be exact and I called the carers allowance team yesterday and advised we would pay this to them and the rest via a payment plan.

I also explained the above and that we had no intentions of this happening. As much as I couldn’t speak about my partners account the gentleman was very sympathetic and said he would put a note on the account. He also confirmed that they would be happy with a payment plan but nothing can be done of course until after this meeting.

I am so worried about this and hope that someone can give us good solid advice on the matter.

Thanks in advance,

Kev.

2

Hi Kev.

Best to seek expert advice here … either the CAB ( Scotland ) or the Carers UK Advice Team ( Best by email ).

Contact details follow :

Citizens Advice Scotland

https://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/carer-disability-benefits/how-to-contact-the-carers-uk-adviceline-24147

For what it’s now worth , there is an existing thread on the " DWP Purge " on family carers :

https://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/carer-disability-benefits/dwp-on-the-warpath-carers-in-the-frame-sweep-nets-80-000-caught-up-please-report-on-this-thread-34576?hilit=dwp%20purge

ALL we know at forum level is contained within that thread.

Let us know how matters progress.

3

Hello,

Thanks very much I have tried CAB but can never get through.

I will email the above into carers advice.

Thanks for such a speedy reply.

4

Your welcome and … good luck.

5

Cheers dood hopefully they can see that we made an error (if thats the case we are awaiting all of 2016 wage slips) and we have no hesitation in putting our hands up to any mistake and rectifying the matter.

Im a bit angry that of course the letter we sent notifying of change hasn’t been received which might be because of their system updates but you would also think when you update one department i.e working tax credits it would update everything else. Surely they could see our income and why would they let this error continue for 3 years…you know what I mean?

If we have been over paid we will pay it back but we are honest people and would never risk frauding the system my partner would loose her job and then we would loose our house

6

That DWP Purge thread … almost all your observations appear therein … with interest !

7

Firstly I would like to thank Suzette from the advice line when I was at my wits end over this.

I have a quick question guys… our 2 best friends who are married to each other (one is a police officer & the other a Store Manager) are both willing to write us character references for the meeting under caution. Will DWP take the character references into consideration?

Thanks,

Kev.

8

Unknown … their existence can do no harm.