May 14, 2025 • 14 mins
Patrick Butler and Josh Halliday (The Guardian) uncovered how vulnerable British carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even though many had tried to report their earnings to the Department of Work and Pensions.
This week, Page 94 is covering the extraordinary stories of the investigative journalists shortlisted for this year’s Paul Foot Award, before the winner’s announcement next week.
This week, Page 94 is covering the extraordinary stories of the investigative journalists shortlisted for this year’s Paul Foot Award, before the winner’s announcement next week.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Maisie (00:00):
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Andy (00:03):
Hello and welcome back to our miniseries for the Paul Foot Awards.
We're speaking every day thisweek to a brilliant journalist or
team of journalists shortlistedfor this year's Paul Foot Award.
So without any further ado, let's geton with today's mini episode and find
out who is up for the award today.
Patrick Butler (00:19):
I'm Patrick Butler.
I'm the social policyeditor at the Guardian.
Josh Halliday (00:23):
I'm Josh Halladay, the North of England Editor, at the
Andy (00:25):
Guardian.
And what's the story that hasbrought you to the Pul for awards?
Patrick Butler (00:29):
We call its Carers Allowance Scandal.
This is a story about injusticesin the benefit system.
it's about how those injusticeshave inflicted debt and misery and
untold stress On some of the mostvulnerable and poorest people in
our society who has devoted theirlives to looking after loved ones.
(00:51):
Carer's Allowance is probably the leastwell known, and it's definitely the, the
least valuable benefit you can claim.
last year joined the bulk of the,the time that we were covering the
scandal, it was 83 pounds a week.
Andy (01:07):
how do you qualify for that, benefit
Patrick Butler (01:09):
you qualify for carer's allowance.
If you provide full-time care for aloved one, it could be your partner, your
mother, your child, who has a disability,or, is, frail or chronically ill.
And you have to provide care for 35 hours.
a Week.
Okay.
Andy (01:26):
about two pounds an hour, roughly.
these payments are administered bythe Department of Work and Pensions.
Yeah.
Patrick Butler (01:32):
Yeah.
Andy (01:32):
So we are dealing with people who've been receiving carer's
allowance and then they're told you'vebeen overpaid under this system.
is that right?
Josh Halliday (01:41):
That's right.
Yeah.
So in, in the majority of cases thatwe've covered, a person has started
claiming car's allowance to lookafter their loved one, it means that,
when you're caring for your loved onefull-time, you can't do full-time work.
So this is in effect,a top up for a salary.
It's not a replacementfor a salary, by any
Andy (01:57):
means.
No.
Josh Halliday (01:58):
it's so pitifully small for the care that they provide
and how much they save the country.
people are allowed to earn acertain amount of money, per
week while claiming this benefit.
Andy (02:09):
Okay.
Josh Halliday (02:09):
if they step over that limit by a penny, they have to pay back
the full week of carer's allowance.
So if you earn one p more.
than the care, than the thresholdyou have to pay back 83 pounds
Andy (02:22):
it's called the Cliff
Josh Halliday (02:22):
Edge Effect.
Patrick Butler (02:23):
So the DWP has this technology whereby it's being sent
these alerts from HMRC about earnings,
and it has the abilityto check those alerts,
but to check them, itrequires that a human being.
Actually looks at it phonesup the carer sorts out,
(02:45):
whether or It's an issue.
what we were able to reveal isfor the last five six years,
they've only checked half
of all those alerts, carersare then thrust into this kind
of Russian roulette situation.
whereby By total chance, your overpaymentmay be spotted in the first week and
(03:07):
you have to pay back 83 pounds, orit could go on for five years, and
you were asked to pay back 16,000pounds, and it is entirely random
and of course it could beanywhere on that spectrum.
Andy (03:22):
it's really extraordinary.
Can, could, do you know what thethreshold is of the maximum amount
you're allowed to earn in a week?
It's, low.
Patrick Butler (03:29):
last year when we were doing our investigations, the
limit was 151 pounds a week, which is
about
13 hours at the national.
Minimum wage.
Andy (03:38):
So if I was a carer, I would be able to have a minimum wage job for,
part-time, maybe one a day and a half,and, still qualify for carer's allowance.
Absolutely.
But if I earned 152 pounds,suddenly I don't qualify.
But the Department of Worker Pensionsdoesn't let me know that I have,
over earned and I'll be having topay back that week's allowance.
(03:59):
They let me continue earningthat amount of money, 152 pounds,
and every week that happens.
I will lose the allowance,but I won't know about it yet.
Patrick Butler (04:07):
this is where it gets very interesting about risk and blame,
in social security law, and this, theDWP will always fall back on this.
They will say, it is up to thecarer to tell us that their
circumstances have changed.
Andy (04:22):
One of the first cases that you reported on was that of Vivian Groom.
Can you tell me a bit more about her?
Josh Halliday (04:26):
I. Vivian Groom was.
A carer for her, elderly mother,and claimed carer's allowance
while working a, part-time job,a few hours a week at a co-op.
as is the nature of part-time jobs.
And often they are, by theway, in supermarkets because
that's what part-time work is
Andy (04:42):
like.
Josh Halliday (04:43):
the nature of these jobs is that sometimes you'll get, unexpected
holiday pay, a small bonus or covid pay.
It's these things that have tippedpeople over the edge, she got this
letter through the door to say, youare being criminally prosecuted.
You owe us 16,000 pounds.
Patrick told me about this story.
I'd never heard ofKerry's allowance before.
He said, you need to go toChester Crown Court I remember.
(05:04):
Reading Patrick's email on my phoneas I was stood like a few feet
away from Vivian Groom before shewas about to called into court.
I struggled to understand it'cause it just seemed so outrageous
it couldn't possibly be right.
I went over to speak to Vivian and her,husband, and they were utterly petrified.
Like almost shaking.
Andy (05:23):
Yeah.
Josh Halliday (05:23):
They'd never been inside a courtroom before.
They'd never had a parking ticket before.
They were in the same courtroomthat Myra Hinley, was sent down in.
The initial judge that they saw wasfairly compassionate and said the DWP
need to go away and, justify to us whyyou are taking this woman's, inheritance
16,000 pound life changing sum moneywhen you can't prove that she knew she
(05:46):
was earning more than the threshold.
The
DWP never went away and proved thatthere was another hearing a few
months later and within minutes.
I. a different judge justtook away the, inheritance.
It was, devastating to watch.
Andy (05:59):
She had been working and earning over the threshold, but she wasn't
told about this until years later.
Patrick Butler (06:05):
what's really fascinating about the Vivian Groom case is she's only
earning 'cause of the nature of the job.
she's only earning justa few pounds over the.
and.
at one point she says, I've beenoffered more hours at the Co-op.
I want to come off carer's allowance.
And the DWP says, oh, we'llget back to you on that.
(06:26):
And they never do.
So she blithely continues andeven then in 2019, she stops.
She stops caring for her mom.
'cause I think her sistercomes in and takes over.
She stops caring for her momand she cancels car's allowance.
And so she stops receiving it.
we reckon that over that period offive years, the DWP would've received
(06:50):
up to 60 alerts from HMRC saying thatshe had overstepped the earnings limit.
So there were multiple opportunitiesfor DWP to say, hang on,
Andy (07:05):
Yeah.
Patrick Butler (07:05):
can we sort this out please?
But, they didn't,
Andy (07:08):
and she was trying to alert the DWP to a change in, she didn't, the most thing
Patrick Butler (07:13):
was doing the right
Josh Halliday (07:14):
thing.
are the most selfless people who'vesacrificed their own lives, their own
careers, everything to look after thepeople that they love and the word,
it, one of the carers put it to me thatthey're powered by unconditional love.
They are, but it really feels like thegovernment takes advantage of them and
then comes down like a ton of brickswhen they've found to be fractionally.
(07:36):
Above this, draconian threshold.
Andy (07:39):
Has Vivian's inheritance been returned to her?
Josh Halliday (07:41):
No.
Patrick Butler (07:42):
What's extraordinary is that had DWP contacted her in 2014,
after a few months and said, Mrs.
Groom, I'm sorry.
You know, you are being overpaid here.
We need to sort this out, she would'vepaid back possibly a few hundred
quid in overpayments that was allowedto accumulate to 16,000 pounds.
(08:04):
And three years after she stoppedreceiving the benefit, she then
gets a demand for 16,000 pounds.
So at that point she says,oh God, oh, it's my fault.
Oh God, sorry, I'll pay it back.
So she's already agreed, I'll payit back 30 quid a month or whatever.
And then after that, department ofProsecutions at the DWP behest comes back
(08:29):
and says, I'm not sure how they know this.
But they realize that she'sinherited 16,000 pounds
from
the mother that she cared for five years.
The Department of PublicProsecutions demands that they
get that 16,000 pounds off her.
So they introduce, proceeds of crime.
(08:51):
Laws.
Now, normally these were introduced, soyou could t track down drug kingpins and
Andy (08:56):
isn't it?
Yeah.
Patrick Butler (08:57):
And Ferraris and speedboats, armed smugglers and so on.
That's what proceeds of crime lawswere introduced for, but they used
that to seize her 16,000 pound
Josh Halliday (09:09):
and in court she had no representation.
She was there by herself.
Facing a barrister hired by the DWP,in a completely unfamiliar legal
system in in a big scary crown court.
And
at that point you just,you have no chance.
Andy (09:26):
How many cases have there been of the DWP reclaiming, this benefit
from carers who've over earned
Patrick Butler (09:33):
currently I think it's, 144,000 carers repaying over 250 million
pounds in overpaid carers allowance.
We also know that, since.
About 2018, around 10,000 unpaidcarers have been prosecuted.
Josh Halliday (09:53):
in the grand scheme of government coffers, not a lot of money.
A quarter of a billion pounds is alot of money to anyone else though.
Andy (10:00):
And
Josh Halliday (10:01):
this is not money that DWP should have let out the door.
this is a, , parliamentary selectcommittee that said these are honest
mistakes by unpaid carers and theNational Audit Office has been in to
review it and found all sorts of problemsthe DW P haven't fixed in six years.
Andy (10:14):
Now Vivian was working as a carer from, did you say 2014?
That she was, working as, acarer and claiming this benefit.
It is now 11 years after that.
And you've reported in thepaper just, a week or so ago
about the case of Oxana Shaha.
this is almost exactly the same story.
(10:34):
But ruining someone else's lifein a different bit of the country.
Can you tell me a bit about Oxana?
Josh Halliday (10:38):
Sana, was a school dinner lady and, she had a zero
hours contract at Sports Direct.
She worked one or two days a weekwhere her caring duties allow, allowed.
She was, she cared for, her, teenage son,Daniel who, has, severe autism They'd
watched this scandal unfold following ourcoverage that, but like Vivian had told
(10:58):
the DWP years ago that they didn't want toreceive car's loans anymore because Oxana
was able to increase her hours at work.
They saw our stories about thecar's land scandal, and the people
who'd been caught up and thought,don't worry, can't happen to us.
We've done the right thing.
And then in January this year,they get the letter through the
door, you owe us 10,000 pounds.
(11:19):
. And you need to pay it back immediately.
they requested a mandatory review.
the DWP provided them with, every singleweek of Oxana N'S earnings over five
years when they said she'd oversteppedthe earnings threshold, not for
every single one of those five weeks,
Important to say, in average, when youdid the calculation, she had earned
(11:39):
one pound 92 more than the thresholdover the course of those five years.
In total that amount to 500pounds more than the threshold.
But she was being told to rerepay over 10,000 pounds because
of this cliff edge approach.
it, really is shockingly unfair.
Andy (11:56):
It's blood boiling.
Really.
it's, I know you're trying to be, you'retrying to be objective about it, but
Josh Halliday (12:01):
really
Andy (12:02):
it's extraordinary.
And when you speak to
Josh Halliday (12:03):
people, Patrick, you've done the same.
It really affects you, doesn't it?
These, this is, devastating sums of money.
People who are already living extremelydifficult lives, trying to do their best.
these people are coping with theongoing trauma of caring for a loved
one, thinking they're doing right, andthey're doing the government and the
public a favor by looking after them.
And they are, because Oxana put herson or Vivian put her mother into
(12:25):
state care, it would cost us vastlymore as a country to look after them.
We've, they've saved us fortunes of theyears, but they're being prosecuted for
the most minuscule fractions in the most.
Cruel ways.
It's really difficult to believe It's,happening and it's still ongoing.
Andy (12:41):
Yes.
I normally ask wheredid the story go next?
But the, scandals are stilljust rolling right out the door,
Patrick Butler (12:47):
hopefully we have some progress.
when our story broke last April mayhave happened to be during the, the
early stages of the election campaignAnd very quickly it became example,
made a big deal of this and Laboreventually decided, said they would.
look into it as well.
new government, October Labor says we aregoing to, commission an independent review
(13:11):
into this, which is good and it's ongoingand it's gonna report in the summer.
labor to its credit also madeone or two limited changes,
which to be fair could have happened atany time in the last decade, at a stroke.
which in some ways mitigated some ofthe effects of this, but the cliff
(13:33):
edge is still there and people arestill running up huge overpayments
Josh Halliday (13:39):
the DDP have only extremely recently, increased their staff
numbers to clear this backlog of carers
in
the last few weeks.
So that means over the next sort
of few
weeks, some months, they'll beunpaid carers getting these same
letters and demands through the door.
They've been sitting there for years,because the DP has only increased
the staff to where it should be.
(14:00):
So.
This, in some senses is the,what we've covered so far is the
tip of the iceberg potentially.
Andy (14:06):
Thanks to Josh and Patrick, an extraordinary story, and we'll be back
again tomorrow with another episode.
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Andy (00:03):
Hello and welcome back to our miniseries for the Paul Foot Awards.
We're speaking every day thisweek to a brilliant journalist or
team of journalists shortlistedfor this year's Paul Foot Award.
So without any further ado, let's geton with today's mini episode and find
out who is up for the award today.
Patrick Butler (00:19):
I'm Patrick Butler.
I'm the social policyeditor at the Guardian.
Josh Halliday (00:23):
I'm Josh Halladay, the North of England Editor, at the
Andy (00:25):
Guardian.
And what's the story that hasbrought you to the Pul for awards?
Patrick Butler (00:29):
We call its Carers Allowance Scandal.
This is a story about injusticesin the benefit system.
it's about how those injusticeshave inflicted debt and misery and
untold stress On some of the mostvulnerable and poorest people in
our society who has devoted theirlives to looking after loved ones.
(00:51):
Carer's Allowance is probably the leastwell known, and it's definitely the, the
least valuable benefit you can claim.
last year joined the bulk of the,the time that we were covering the
scandal, it was 83 pounds a week.
Andy (01:07):
how do you qualify for that, benefit
Patrick Butler (01:09):
you qualify for carer's allowance.
If you provide full-time care for aloved one, it could be your partner, your
mother, your child, who has a disability,or, is, frail or chronically ill.
And you have to provide care for 35 hours.
a Week.
Okay.
Andy (01:26):
about two pounds an hour, roughly.
these payments are administered bythe Department of Work and Pensions.
Yeah.
Patrick Butler (01:32):
Yeah.
Andy (01:32):
So we are dealing with people who've been receiving carer's
allowance and then they're told you'vebeen overpaid under this system.
is that right?
Josh Halliday (01:41):
That's right.
Yeah.
So in, in the majority of cases thatwe've covered, a person has started
claiming car's allowance to lookafter their loved one, it means that,
when you're caring for your loved onefull-time, you can't do full-time work.
So this is in effect,a top up for a salary.
It's not a replacementfor a salary, by any
Andy (01:57):
means.
No.
Josh Halliday (01:58):
it's so pitifully small for the care that they provide
and how much they save the country.
people are allowed to earn acertain amount of money, per
week while claiming this benefit.
Andy (02:09):
Okay.
Josh Halliday (02:09):
if they step over that limit by a penny, they have to pay back
the full week of carer's allowance.
So if you earn one p more.
than the care, than the thresholdyou have to pay back 83 pounds
Andy (02:22):
it's called the Cliff
Josh Halliday (02:22):
Edge Effect.
Patrick Butler (02:23):
So the DWP has this technology whereby it's being sent
these alerts from HMRC about earnings,
and it has the abilityto check those alerts,
but to check them, itrequires that a human being.
Actually looks at it phonesup the carer sorts out,
(02:45):
whether or It's an issue.
what we were able to reveal isfor the last five six years,
they've only checked half
of all those alerts, carersare then thrust into this kind
of Russian roulette situation.
whereby By total chance, your overpaymentmay be spotted in the first week and
(03:07):
you have to pay back 83 pounds, orit could go on for five years, and
you were asked to pay back 16,000pounds, and it is entirely random
and of course it could beanywhere on that spectrum.
Andy (03:22):
it's really extraordinary.
Can, could, do you know what thethreshold is of the maximum amount
you're allowed to earn in a week?
It's, low.
Patrick Butler (03:29):
last year when we were doing our investigations, the
limit was 151 pounds a week, which is
about
13 hours at the national.
Minimum wage.
Andy (03:38):
So if I was a carer, I would be able to have a minimum wage job for,
part-time, maybe one a day and a half,and, still qualify for carer's allowance.
Absolutely.
But if I earned 152 pounds,suddenly I don't qualify.
But the Department of Worker Pensionsdoesn't let me know that I have,
over earned and I'll be having topay back that week's allowance.
(03:59):
They let me continue earningthat amount of money, 152 pounds,
and every week that happens.
I will lose the allowance,but I won't know about it yet.
Patrick Butler (04:07):
this is where it gets very interesting about risk and blame,
in social security law, and this, theDWP will always fall back on this.
They will say, it is up to thecarer to tell us that their
circumstances have changed.
Andy (04:22):
One of the first cases that you reported on was that of Vivian Groom.
Can you tell me a bit more about her?
Josh Halliday (04:26):
I. Vivian Groom was.
A carer for her, elderly mother,and claimed carer's allowance
while working a, part-time job,a few hours a week at a co-op.
as is the nature of part-time jobs.
And often they are, by theway, in supermarkets because
that's what part-time work is
Andy (04:42):
like.
Josh Halliday (04:43):
the nature of these jobs is that sometimes you'll get, unexpected
holiday pay, a small bonus or covid pay.
It's these things that have tippedpeople over the edge, she got this
letter through the door to say, youare being criminally prosecuted.
You owe us 16,000 pounds.
Patrick told me about this story.
I'd never heard ofKerry's allowance before.
He said, you need to go toChester Crown Court I remember.
(05:04):
Reading Patrick's email on my phoneas I was stood like a few feet
away from Vivian Groom before shewas about to called into court.
I struggled to understand it'cause it just seemed so outrageous
it couldn't possibly be right.
I went over to speak to Vivian and her,husband, and they were utterly petrified.
Like almost shaking.
Andy (05:23):
Yeah.
Josh Halliday (05:23):
They'd never been inside a courtroom before.
They'd never had a parking ticket before.
They were in the same courtroomthat Myra Hinley, was sent down in.
The initial judge that they saw wasfairly compassionate and said the DWP
need to go away and, justify to us whyyou are taking this woman's, inheritance
16,000 pound life changing sum moneywhen you can't prove that she knew she
(05:46):
was earning more than the threshold.
The
DWP never went away and proved thatthere was another hearing a few
months later and within minutes.
I. a different judge justtook away the, inheritance.
It was, devastating to watch.
Andy (05:59):
She had been working and earning over the threshold, but she wasn't
told about this until years later.
Patrick Butler (06:05):
what's really fascinating about the Vivian Groom case is she's only
earning 'cause of the nature of the job.
she's only earning justa few pounds over the.
and.
at one point she says, I've beenoffered more hours at the Co-op.
I want to come off carer's allowance.
And the DWP says, oh, we'llget back to you on that.
(06:26):
And they never do.
So she blithely continues andeven then in 2019, she stops.
She stops caring for her mom.
'cause I think her sistercomes in and takes over.
She stops caring for her momand she cancels car's allowance.
And so she stops receiving it.
we reckon that over that period offive years, the DWP would've received
(06:50):
up to 60 alerts from HMRC saying thatshe had overstepped the earnings limit.
So there were multiple opportunitiesfor DWP to say, hang on,
Andy (07:05):
Yeah.
Patrick Butler (07:05):
can we sort this out please?
But, they didn't,
Andy (07:08):
and she was trying to alert the DWP to a change in, she didn't, the most thing
Patrick Butler (07:13):
was doing the right
Josh Halliday (07:14):
thing.
are the most selfless people who'vesacrificed their own lives, their own
careers, everything to look after thepeople that they love and the word,
it, one of the carers put it to me thatthey're powered by unconditional love.
They are, but it really feels like thegovernment takes advantage of them and
then comes down like a ton of brickswhen they've found to be fractionally.
(07:36):
Above this, draconian threshold.
Andy (07:39):
Has Vivian's inheritance been returned to her?
Josh Halliday (07:41):
No.
Patrick Butler (07:42):
What's extraordinary is that had DWP contacted her in 2014,
after a few months and said, Mrs.
Groom, I'm sorry.
You know, you are being overpaid here.
We need to sort this out, she would'vepaid back possibly a few hundred
quid in overpayments that was allowedto accumulate to 16,000 pounds.
(08:04):
And three years after she stoppedreceiving the benefit, she then
gets a demand for 16,000 pounds.
So at that point she says,oh God, oh, it's my fault.
Oh God, sorry, I'll pay it back.
So she's already agreed, I'll payit back 30 quid a month or whatever.
And then after that, department ofProsecutions at the DWP behest comes back
(08:29):
and says, I'm not sure how they know this.
But they realize that she'sinherited 16,000 pounds
from
the mother that she cared for five years.
The Department of PublicProsecutions demands that they
get that 16,000 pounds off her.
So they introduce, proceeds of crime.
(08:51):
Laws.
Now, normally these were introduced, soyou could t track down drug kingpins and
Andy (08:56):
isn't it?
Yeah.
Patrick Butler (08:57):
And Ferraris and speedboats, armed smugglers and so on.
That's what proceeds of crime lawswere introduced for, but they used
that to seize her 16,000 pound
Josh Halliday (09:09):
and in court she had no representation.
She was there by herself.
Facing a barrister hired by the DWP,in a completely unfamiliar legal
system in in a big scary crown court.
And
at that point you just,you have no chance.
Andy (09:26):
How many cases have there been of the DWP reclaiming, this benefit
from carers who've over earned
Patrick Butler (09:33):
currently I think it's, 144,000 carers repaying over 250 million
pounds in overpaid carers allowance.
We also know that, since.
About 2018, around 10,000 unpaidcarers have been prosecuted.
Josh Halliday (09:53):
in the grand scheme of government coffers, not a lot of money.
A quarter of a billion pounds is alot of money to anyone else though.
Andy (10:00):
And
Josh Halliday (10:01):
this is not money that DWP should have let out the door.
this is a, , parliamentary selectcommittee that said these are honest
mistakes by unpaid carers and theNational Audit Office has been in to
review it and found all sorts of problemsthe DW P haven't fixed in six years.
Andy (10:14):
Now Vivian was working as a carer from, did you say 2014?
That she was, working as, acarer and claiming this benefit.
It is now 11 years after that.
And you've reported in thepaper just, a week or so ago
about the case of Oxana Shaha.
this is almost exactly the same story.
(10:34):
But ruining someone else's lifein a different bit of the country.
Can you tell me a bit about Oxana?
Josh Halliday (10:38):
Sana, was a school dinner lady and, she had a zero
hours contract at Sports Direct.
She worked one or two days a weekwhere her caring duties allow, allowed.
She was, she cared for, her, teenage son,Daniel who, has, severe autism They'd
watched this scandal unfold following ourcoverage that, but like Vivian had told
(10:58):
the DWP years ago that they didn't want toreceive car's loans anymore because Oxana
was able to increase her hours at work.
They saw our stories about thecar's land scandal, and the people
who'd been caught up and thought,don't worry, can't happen to us.
We've done the right thing.
And then in January this year,they get the letter through the
door, you owe us 10,000 pounds.
(11:19):
. And you need to pay it back immediately.
they requested a mandatory review.
the DWP provided them with, every singleweek of Oxana N'S earnings over five
years when they said she'd oversteppedthe earnings threshold, not for
every single one of those five weeks,
Important to say, in average, when youdid the calculation, she had earned
(11:39):
one pound 92 more than the thresholdover the course of those five years.
In total that amount to 500pounds more than the threshold.
But she was being told to rerepay over 10,000 pounds because
of this cliff edge approach.
it, really is shockingly unfair.
Andy (11:56):
It's blood boiling.
Really.
it's, I know you're trying to be, you'retrying to be objective about it, but
Josh Halliday (12:01):
really
Andy (12:02):
it's extraordinary.
And when you speak to
Josh Halliday (12:03):
people, Patrick, you've done the same.
It really affects you, doesn't it?
These, this is, devastating sums of money.
People who are already living extremelydifficult lives, trying to do their best.
these people are coping with theongoing trauma of caring for a loved
one, thinking they're doing right, andthey're doing the government and the
public a favor by looking after them.
And they are, because Oxana put herson or Vivian put her mother into
(12:25):
state care, it would cost us vastlymore as a country to look after them.
We've, they've saved us fortunes of theyears, but they're being prosecuted for
the most minuscule fractions in the most.
Cruel ways.
It's really difficult to believe It's,happening and it's still ongoing.
Andy (12:41):
Yes.
I normally ask wheredid the story go next?
But the, scandals are stilljust rolling right out the door,
Patrick Butler (12:47):
hopefully we have some progress.
when our story broke last April mayhave happened to be during the, the
early stages of the election campaignAnd very quickly it became example,
made a big deal of this and Laboreventually decided, said they would.
look into it as well.
new government, October Labor says we aregoing to, commission an independent review
(13:11):
into this, which is good and it's ongoingand it's gonna report in the summer.
labor to its credit also madeone or two limited changes,
which to be fair could have happened atany time in the last decade, at a stroke.
which in some ways mitigated some ofthe effects of this, but the cliff
(13:33):
edge is still there and people arestill running up huge overpayments
Josh Halliday (13:39):
the DDP have only extremely recently, increased their staff
numbers to clear this backlog of carers
in
the last few weeks.
So that means over the next sort
of few
weeks, some months, they'll beunpaid carers getting these same
letters and demands through the door.
They've been sitting there for years,because the DP has only increased
the staff to where it should be.
(14:00):
So.
This, in some senses is the,what we've covered so far is the
tip of the iceberg potentially.
Andy (14:06):
Thanks to Josh and Patrick, an extraordinary story, and we'll be back
again tomorrow with another episode.
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