Overview
- The Department for Work and Pensions launched a six-week call for evidence in early July that closes on 18 August 2026 and invites carers, people with care needs and organisations to respond.
- Ministers have already raised the weekly earnings limit to a record £204 so carers can earn about £10,000 a year without losing support and updated guidance to reduce confusion.
- The DWP is reassessing roughly 200,000 historic Carer’s Allowance cases and expects about 25,000 claimants to have debts reduced, cancelled or refunded with new rules protecting refunds from harming other benefits.
- Officials are seeking views on specific reforms including replacing the sharp ‘cliff edge’ with an earnings taper, revising how variable pay is averaged, and changing work-hour limits to help carers combine paid work and care.
- Any major rule change would follow the evidence-gathering and require multi-year IT and operational work to implement, while the review builds on the Sayce Review finding that unclear guidance and an outdated earnings cap caused unfair treatment.