All we want for Christmas is for unpaid carers to be properly supported by the DWP and councils

Our last few Christmasses have been defined not by finding time for festivities but by the complexities of being unpaid carers. Last year, whilst one of us made a fourth trip across the Pennines to answer an urgent call for their mum, the other was frantically arranging oncology appointments for their husband all while self-isolating in the spare room.

For both of us it became full-time work, and while many worry whether they can fit everyone around the table to celebrate, we were more concerned about finding an hour to sit down at all. Over our festive period, plans were cancelled and replaced with hospital visits, even if the wards were covered with tinsel and the nurses donned Santa hats.

When people hear about experiences of unpaid carers (those family, friends or neighbours who are supporting someone who wouldn’t be able to manage without them) there can be lots of preconceptions – it can’t be that bad, they should just call the council and get help, it can fit around work. Often these arise because we talk about care as something in the distance that won’t affect us all.

• ‘We can’t keep up’: Councils cutting services and facing bankruptcy over rising cost of social care
• Nearly one million more people will be unpaid carers by 2035, report finds

But as our society changes, the likelihood of having a relationship with care is increasing. If we continue to deny that then we risk failing to create a genuinely caring world around us. 

In the absence of a more meaningful conversation, we have had two dominant stories this year. Firstly, if we fund and “fix” social care all will be right with the system. And secondly, in the wake of the carer’s allowance scandal, unpaid carers need a social security system that helps them to take on more paid work. These ideas have been on repeat for decades with very little to show for themselves. 

There is no doubt that both the social care and social security systems need reform – those with a relationship to care are more likely to leave work, live in poverty and experience health inequalities. But we’re too often presented with silver bullet solutions rather than interrogation of the root causes that lead us to a dysfunctional relationship with care to start with. 

Platitudes about “unsung heroes” leave carers kept out of sight and out of mind and presenting care as something extraordinary rather than foundational leaves us all worse off. 

Recently details were published of the upcoming review into the carer’s allowance overpayment scandal. Currently, unpaid carers earning just 1p more than the £151 earning limit lose their entire entitlement to the £81.90 a week payment.

This cliff-edge has left thousands of carers in debt as the DWP claw back from anyone who tips over. The National Audit Office estimate a combined £250m debt exists, a number soaring from the already unsustainable £150m in 2018/19. Worryingly, this scandal is Carer’s Allowance working as it is designed to. 

Carers have been caught by bonuses, pay increases, an extra couple of hours work. Add to this other conditions on the payment – you must be supporting someone claiming a qualifying benefit, provide 35 hours of care yourself, be over 16, not studying for more than 21 hours and not earning more than £151 a week – and it is clear that a scandal extends to poverty levels of income for carers, incredibly high criteria for support and increasing stress for those already under pressure.

Weaved through the system is an unquestioned wisdom that paid work is the best way out of poverty. This mantra suggests that unpaid work, like care, should be minimised, and the design of our welfare state encourages this by making it untenable to survive otherwise.

Even when taking into account all sources of income a carer receiving carer’s allowance is allowed, single carers’ income is less than 60% of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation minimum income standard (the amount they calculate is needed to live well). This is a political choice. 

For now, the only change made to carer’s allowance in the wake of the scandal is an increase in the earnings limit from £151 to £196. Meanwhile, the benefit itself is rising just £1.40 a week next year. That means that the only option for unpaid carers to improve their financial situation is to take on more paid work, although it’s unclear how they will fit that into their already busy lives. 

This is an example of our puncture repair approach to care. At Care Full, we want to see ambition that goes beyond piecemeal changes and towards a design for our economy, social security and public services that actively enables care. Bolder ideas that shift our economic value towards human enabling activity like care are much needed; only when we start from this position will we truly be able to create a world where we can all care for ourselves, each other and the planet. 

Ruth Hannan and Hannah Webster are co-founders of Care Full. Care Full was founded in 2023 as a space to expand ideas about the role of care in a new economy. Founded by two unpaid carers, Care Full seeks to inspire new ideas that value the role of care in our economy and enable us all to care for ourselves, each other and the planet. It brings together research, advocacy and participation, to conceptualise and demonstrate what a new, care-centred future might look like.

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