Open call for evidence

Carer's Allowance: call for evidence

Published 7 July 2026

Ministerial foreword

Unpaid carers make a vital contribution to our communities and our country, providing care and support to family members and loved ones, often alongside other responsibilities. Carer’s Allowance plays an important role in recognising that contribution.

But we know the system has not always worked as well as it should. We inherited a system where some carers, already managing significant caring responsibilities, found themselves with unexpected overpayments and uncertainty about how the rules applied to them.

The Independent Review into Carer’s Allowance overpayments showed us that mistakes were made by the previous government, and we are determined to put them right. Carer’s Allowance was introduced in 1976. While it has supported carers and their loved ones, it hasn’t kept up with changes in how people work today. Many carers want the flexibility to combine some paid work with their caring responsibilities.

We have already taken steps to improve the system, including linking the Carer’s Allowance weekly earnings limit to 16 times the hourly National Living Wage, updating decision maker guidance, and improving customer letters and communications. This Call for Evidence is an important next step.

We want to build our evidence base to understand better how Carer’s Allowance can support carers to balance work and caring responsibilities, while remaining clear, fair and sustainable. We are seeking views and evidence to help us consider how Carer’s Allowance could be modernised, including through an earnings taper, the role of the earnings rules and how they operate in practice.

We want to hear from carers, representative organisations and others with relevant experience. Your insights will be central to building the evidence base for any future decisions.

Background and purpose

Carer’s Allowance provides a measure of financial support to people in England and Wales who are not able to work full time because of their caring responsibilities. For most, but not all people, it is complemented by support from Universal Credit or Pension Credit. To receive Carer’s Allowance, claimants must meet a number of conditions, including providing a minimum of 35 hours of care per week. Carer’s Allowance is not means-tested but applies an earnings limit of 16 times the hourly rate of the National Living Wage, (currently £204 per week), as an indirect way of ensuring that the disabled person is receiving the care they need. Universal Credit and Pension Credit also provide additional support for carers. Where someone receives more than one benefit, the interaction between them can affect overall entitlement. In practice, this can make the system complex and difficult to understand.

The Government has recently taken action to address issues identified in the Independent Review of Carer’s Allowance overpayments, including improving guidance and reviewing past overpayments. These issues included a lack of clarity in how earnings rules operated in practice, particularly for those with fluctuating incomes, which meant some carers were unaware they had exceeded the earnings limit.

The Government accepted or partially accepted 38 out of 40 of the Review’s recommendations and has begun implementing changes to improve the operation of the system.

Aim of this call for evidence

This Call for Evidence asks for information and views to build on the Department’s existing evidence. Responses will help shape future policy thinking about how Carer’s Allowance can be modernised to support carers. We want to hear how you think we can:

• reflect modern patterns of care, work and earnings
• support carers to balance paid work and caring responsibilities
• ensure the system is clear and easy to understand
• maintain fairness and value for money for taxpayers

The Department is particularly interested in views on potential reform options for the Carer’s Allowance earnings limit, and whether a more predictable approach to how earnings are averaged would better support carers, compared to the current case-by-case approach. Currently, where earnings vary from week to week, the Department may look for a pattern and average earnings over a period of time. This approach is intended to reflect fluctuating work but can be difficult for carers to understand and predict, particularly when their earnings change.

Responding to this call for evidence

This call for evidence is open from 7 July 2026 and will close at 11:59pm on 18 August 2026.

Online

Please respond to this call for evidence using the online form: Carer’s Allowance: call for evidence. Responses are submitted anonymously. If your response includes attachments, or exceeds the character limit of the online form, please email your response to us at carer.callforevidence@dwp.gov.uk

By post

If you would like to respond by post, please mail your response to the Department for Work and Pensions at the following address:

Carer’s Allowance Reform
Devolution, Pensioner Benefits & Carer’s Allowance Directorate
Department for Work and Pensions
Floor Two 
Caxton House 
London
SW1H 9NA

By email

You can email us at carer.callforevidence@dwp.gov.uk to find out about alternative ways of submitting a response (for example, by audio). You can also use this email address if your response includes attachments or exceeds the character limit of the online form. Please note that this inbox is for call for evidence responses only, and we are unable to respond to queries about individual benefit claims or personal circumstances.

You can submit a video in British Sign Language to carer.cfebsl@dwp.gov.uk

Please ensure that call for evidence responses are submitted before the closing date on 18 August 2026.

Accessibility

This call for evidence is available in accessible versions including British Sign Language, Easy Read, audio, Braille, large print and Welsh translation.

To request a Braille version or physical copies of other accessible versions of this call for evidence, email us at carer.callforevidence@dwp.gov.uk

Data protection and confidentiality

The Department for Work and Pensions will analyse and summarise responses and may use artificial intelligence to assist with the handling of responses – this will be under human oversight and will not replace human judgement in the consideration of evidence. An anonymised version of your response may be published in a list of responses, in a summary of responses received, and in any subsequent review reports. We may also share your personal data where required to by law, for example in relation to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We will remove information which could identify you, such as email addresses and telephone numbers from these responses, but apart from this we may publish responses in full. You can leave out personal information from your response entirely if you would prefer to do so.

Next steps

The call for evidence closes at 11:59pm on 18 August 2026. A summary of responses received will be published shortly after the call for evidence closes.

Further information about Carer’s Allowance, and how to claim, is available at Carer’s Allowance: How it works on GOV.UK.