The Department for Work and Pensions has unveiled plans to test a new alert system designed to warn Carer's Allowance claimants about potential overpayments.
He said: "There are issues with Carer's Allowance that, as a benefit, has been around in one form or another for many decades, in fact back to the 1970s. An element of that problem hinges upon the threshold, which is currently an earnings threshold of £151 per week as a kind of proxy for establishing whether somebody is in gainful employment or not because, of course, the benefit is there for those who are caring for 35 hours per week.
He also highlighted that individuals are made aware of the earnings rules when they first apply for the allowance and each year when the payment increases. Moreover, he mentioned that recipients should take some "personal responsibility" to understand when they might no longer be eligible, to prevent overpayments from accumulating.
"One of the further elements of complexity is there are deductions from earnings that can be perfectly legitimately - and rightly in my view - made to determine how close or otherwise you are to that threshold. That will include income tax, National Insurance, and it could include half the value of transfers made into private pension schemes, for example.