UK government dementia adviser resigns over prosecutions of carers

One of Rishi Sunak’s dementia advisers has resigned over the government’s approach towards unpaid carers, describing the prosecutions of vulnerable people as “beyond the pale”.

Johnny Timpson, who advised No 10 on its dementia strategy, said he wanted to “take a stand” after the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers were being fined huge sums and in some cases prosecuted for minor infringements of earnings rules.

The former Cabinet Office adviser said he had been “quite disenchanted” with the Conservative government’s approach towards people with disabilities for some time but this had now come to a head.

Related: Carers in the UK: have you been threatened with prosecution for benefit fraud?

“The fact that we have made absolutely no progress at all on social care [and] we really did not support carers adequately during the pandemic,” he said. “But this latest thing – the approach the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] are taking to reclaim benefits from carers and people with disabilities, particularly with neurological disabilities – is beyond the pale for me really.”

The Guardian has in recent weeks revealed and documented the despair and misery experienced by unpaid carers forced to pay huge fines – and sometimes prosecuted for fraud – after minor breaches of carer’s allowance earnings rules amounting to a few pounds.

They include a 92-year-old woman with advanced Parkinson’s who was ordered to pay back nearly £7,000 in disability allowance after failing to notify the department of a change in circumstances five years ago when she was in the early stages of dementia. The DWP has said it is urgently reviewing her case.

Timpson, who was awarded an OBE in 2022, sat on the prime minister’s dementia friendly communities champion group. He was previously a Cabinet Office disability ambassador.

He said the DWP’s approach to carer’s allowance was in breach of its own policy towards protecting vulnerable benefit claimants. “The DWP has its own vulnerable customer policy and practice and quite frankly it’s not following it,” he said.

“We have huge regulatory focus on fundamental customer support in regulated sectors and the DWP is completely out of step with what’s happening in private sector organisations – and really no one has been taken to account so I wanted to take a stand and call this out.”

He said the DWP had become “too big and too removed” and should potentially be disbanded as part of a wider reform of the welfare sector.

Separately, one of the government’s disability ambassadors, Kathryn Townsend, has described the DWP’s approach as “extremely concerning” and urged the department to immediately stop clawing back carer’s allowance overpayments.

Townsend, the disability ambassador for the banking sector, said in a letter to the pensions minister Mims Davies that the reports of unpaid carers being forced to pay back huge sums were “extremely concerning”. She added that they were “increasing the risk of financial and non-financial harm faced by these already vulnerable individuals”.

The criticisms came as Davies prepared to face tough questions from MPs on the Commons work and pensions select committee on Wednesday.

A government spokesperson said: “Carers across the UK are unsung heroes who make a huge difference to someone else’s life. We have increased carer’s allowance by almost £1,500 since 2010 and have also made up to £8.6bn available in additional funding over 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the social care sector and hospital discharge.

“We are committed to fairness in the welfare system, with safeguards in place for managing repayments, while protecting the public purse. Claimants have a responsibility to consistently inform DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award, and it is right that we recover taxpayers’ money when this has not occurred.”