UK’s ‘unsung army’ of full-time unpaid carers needs more support, report says | Carers

A growing “unsung army” of 1 million people with full-time caring responsibilities needs better support, according to a report that found one in three unpaid carers from poorer backgrounds were unable to work because of their duties.

The trend is the result of an ageing society and rising ill-health and disability concentrated in the poorest half of the country’s working-age families, the Resolution Foundation’s research found.

Almost one in three working-age adults in lower-income families had a disability, compared with fewer than one in five in better-off families, the thinktank said.

It added that in homes of modest means, 1 million people had caring responsibilities of 35 hours or more a week – the equivalent of a full-time job – making it challenging to secure paid work.

Mike Brewer, the deputy chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: “Britain is getting older and sicker, while a greater share of its population has a disability. While these trends affect the whole of society, they are starkest in the poorest half of working-age families across the country.

“While we talk a lot about the effects of ageing and ill-health, the implications on demand for unpaid care is largely absent from political debate.

“That’s despite Britain having an ‘unsung army’ of 1 million people who do at least 35 hours of unpaid care work every week – equivalent to a full-time job.

“It is time to provide better support for these carers and their families, just as we have done with working parents in recent decades.”

In response, a government spokesperson said: “We understand the huge difference carers make, as well as the struggles they may face.

“That’s why we’ve delivered the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for carer’s allowance, whilst unpaid carers can also receive support, including short breaks and respite services, through the Better Care Fund.

“Alongside this, we are reviewing the implementation of carer’s leave and considering the benefits of introducing paid carer’s leave.”

In 2024, a Guardian investigation revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers, most of them already in poverty, had received large bills for overpayments that ran into thousands of pounds as a result of failures by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Those affected unwittingly fell foul of earnings rules despite a promise in 2019 by the DWP’s permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, that new technology would eradicate the problem of overpayments.

In the five years after the verify earnings and pensions tool, known as VEP, was presented as a solution to the problems of carer’s allowance, more than 262,000 overpayments totalling in excess of £325m were clawed back from carers, and 600 carers were prosecuted and received criminal records, according to the National Audit Office.

As a result of the investigation, Labour set up an independent review of the allowance and raised the earnings limit for those claiming it.