Campaigners said the National Audit Office (NAO) report highlighted the scale of the misery and hardship inflicted on carers over the period as well as the extent of the failure by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to tackle overpayments.
More than 262,000 repayable overpayments totalling in excess of £325m were clawed back from carers who had - mostly unwittingly - fallen foul of carer's allowance rules, while 600 carers were prosecuted and received criminal records after DWP civil servants referred their cases to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Charities and MPs said the watchdog's report showed that the DWP's failure to properly staff its carer's allowance department and address flaws in the benefit's design had left thousands of carers in financial difficulties and emotional distress.
A Guardian investigation this year revealed how Conservative ministers allowed overpayments to grow almost unchecked for years, despite senior officials promising MPs in 2019 that new data-matching technology would eradicate the problem.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 11, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 11, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Police investigation into Post Office is of 'unprecedented' size
The police criminal inquiry into the Post Office has identified dozens of persons of interest so far, as a team bolstered to 100 officers investigates the actions of executives, legal teams and civil servants connected to the Horizon IT scandal.
Tories are in an echo chamber chamber with their leader set to self-destruct, luckily for Labour
It could have been Farage or Anderson asking the questions. Badenoch was hellbent on annexing the Reform agenda
Assad's downfall planned by US and Israel, claims Iran's supreme leader
Iran's supreme leader has claimed the US and Israel acted as the command centre that engineered the downfall of Syria's former president, Bashar al-Assad, and the ousting of Iran from the country.
Islamic State Begum and 65 other Britons in prisons face uncertainty amid offensive
Shamima Begum and 65 other Islamic State-linked Britons detained in prisons and camps in north-east Syria face an uncertain future as Turkish-backed rebel groups continue an offensive against the Kurdish groups who guard them.
Golan Heights Druze population on Syrian border fear territorial battles
On the outskirts of the Druze village of Majdal Shams, high in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a gate in the fence leads to the supposedly demilitarised buffer zone on the Syrian side.
What will US do now? The risks raised by a hands-off approach
For a Biden administration in its final days, managing the downfall of Bashar al-Assad was not on the cards.
'Finally we can breathe' Country gets back to work after president is ousted
When Hayyan Maqsoud, the director of Syria's postal service, returned to work, the first thing he did was remove the portraits of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his father, Hafez, from the walls of his Damascus office.
Bowel cancer cases in under-50s on the increase across the world
The number of under-50s being diagnosed with bowel cancer is increasing worldwide, according to landmark research that also reveals rates are rising faster in England than in almost any other country.
Gregg Wallace 'harassed young journalist with creepy texts'
Gregg Wallace is accused of sending inappropriate texts to a young female reporter asking her for \"a snog\" and leaving \"creepy\" voicemails after taking her number under the pretext of work.
Brief respite over after years of Tory jibes
Many civil servants breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the back of the Conservatives in July - a hoped-for end to long-running pay disputes, the looming axe of job cuts and a sense of chaos.
