DWP pursued woman’s employer for nonexistent ‘benefit debt’

A woman providing full-time unpaid care for her elderly disabled mother says her job has been put in jeopardy because welfare officials wrongly pursued her employer for a nonexistent “benefit debt” quashed by the courts nearly four years ago. The 44-year-old woman said she was staggered when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wrote to her employer out of the blue earlier this month demanding they deduct the universal credit overpayment “debt” from her salary. When the woman, known as Ms C, contacted the DWP to remind it that the overpayment had been dismissed by a judge in 2022, officials said they had no record of the tribunal decision – and asked her to send a copy of it to them in the post. She said the DWP’s failure to stop the enforcement order, despite repeated pleas over the past fortnight, meant she had been forced to ask her employers not to pay her wages at the end of this month to prevent the “debt” being wrongly paid. Ms C who works in the financial services industry, and has not claimed benefits for five years, told the Guardian the DWP’s chaotic and “institutionally careless” handling of her case made her feel “punished for caring”. She said: “As a carer, you are already holding together someone else’s life, health, safety, paperwork and dignity. …