“The basic rate of universal credit is already so low. Once you’re having deductions that pull you below even that, the main impact we see is financial hardship. In the most extreme cases it can push people into destitution,” he said.
In a letter seen by the Big Issue, the DWP told Makanju she owed the money because she was “no longer caring” for her nine-year-old son – which Makanju says is not the case. Her boys are both autistic and depend on her for care.
The eldest had his disability living allowance (DLA) stopped in 2021 after Makanju failed to get medical evidence on time, which she claims was due to waiting lists during the pandemic.
As a consequence, Makanju was no longer eligible for the carer’s element of universal credit.
Makanju claims she informed the DWP that the DLA had been stopped. In spite of this, she continued getting the carer’s element of universal credit and assumed this was right until January 2024, when she received a letter stating that she owed £16,895.06.
“I was running crazy,” Makanju says. “I went numb. I can’t process it.”
Makanju now faces monthly deductions from her universal credit as a result of the error and she is struggling with the emotional toll of the debt.
“This is a lot of money for me,” she says. “I’m a single parent. I’m not sure how I can pay it.”
David Samson, a benefits expert at Turn2us, explains that the “rigid design of our social security system can unknowingly push people into unmanageable debt”.
“For this single parent, the persistence needed to navigate the complex DLA claim form and the challenges of gathering evidence led to the claim being stopped, which in turn affected the carer element of universal credit,” he explains.
“The rules on universal credit are unforgiving regarding overpayments, as they are always recovered.”
The DWP has come under widespread scrutiny for its treatment of unpaid carers who have been overpaid carer’s allowance, a separate benefit to the carer’s element of universal credit.
Stephen Timms, now minister for social security in the DWP, said earlier this year that the government must “get a grip of the problem and ensure carers are no longer subjected to the distress that such overpayments can cause”.
Thousands of unpaid carers are facing debt and some have been threatened with prosecution – often because they have breached the earnings limit rules, even by just a few pounds.
A DWP spokesperson said: “Our country would grind to a halt without the millions of carers who provide care and continuity of support for vulnerable people every day.
“We recognise the challenges they are facing and we are determined to provide unpaid carers with the support they deserve. We carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments and support is in place to manage repayments fairly.”
It is not only carers who are impacted. The government overpaid benefit claimants £8.2bn in the financial year 2022/2023.
Around £6.4bn of this was because of fraud, but £1.4bn was because of errors caused by the claimant and £0.6bn was caused by errors made by the DWP.
“It’s definitely having a wide impact,” Thomas says. “We also hear a lot about people who are getting really old overpayments from tax credits, even as much as 10 years later.
“And when you’re already financially struggling, and you’re getting an extra £30 to £60 taken off your benefit, that can make a really big difference.”
The Big Issue has covered cases in which the DWP has mistakenly accused people of owing thousands, including a disabled woman who was wrongfully charged with a £28,000 benefit overpayment and a single mother accused of owing £12,000.
In these cases, the DWP admitted its mistakes and the benefit overpayment was written off.
But Makanju will be held liable. This is because an overpayment was made and, regardless of the cause, the DWP has the power to recover universal credit overpayments.
Under the legacy benefits system, the DWP could only recover an overpayment if it was caused by “misrepresentation” or “failure to disclose” a fact.
“That was a good backstop that meant that if it was the DWP’s fault you’ve been overpaid, there was a sense of fairness that they weren’t going to recover that unless it’s something you failed to tell them or something you’ve told them that wasn’t true,” Thomas says.
“But under the universal credit system, they removed that and they can just take back any overpayments, no matter how they were caused.”
Makanju could ask the DWP to exercise their discretion and waive the overpayment, but Thomas says this is rare and the system is “deeply flawed”.
Thomas adds: “Where overpayments have been caused by DWP’s own error, we want to see these overpayments written off by default. We also want to see the government introduce a minimum floor below which no universal credit payments can fall, to prevent people being pushed into destitution by deductions.”
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