Work and Pensions Committee report on Employment support for carers
See our revised Carer’s Allowance factsheet
This report calls on Government to remove the cliff-edge in benefit calculation (where benefits are suddenly removed rather than tapered off) that sees Carer’s Allowance - £64.60 per week – withdrawn in full as soon as Carers earn more than £120 a week.
This means, that under the current benefit system, work does not pay if carers want to work additional hours. The Committee says that the new Universal Credit will remove disincentives to work for many carers, but full roll out will take several years and some carers will still face cliff edges.
The Committee says Government should:
- withdraw Carer’s Allowance gradually as income rises, in line with the Universal Credit taper system.
- link the earnings threshold to rises in the National Living Wage
- allow carers to request flexible working from day 1 of their employment
- when resources allow, introduce a statutory 5 days paid carer’s leave
- act as model-employer itself: at present just six government departments are members of the Employers for Carers forum and only five have specific carer policies
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