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The government’s top welfare official is to step down after his department’s handling of a longstanding benefits failure that plunged thousands into debt and became known as the carer’s allowance scandal.
Sir Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, announced to staff on Monday that he is to step down in July for personal reasons.
The DWP has come under increasing scrutiny since a Guardian investigation revealed leadership shortcomings unfairly landed thousands of unpaid carers with hefty bills – and in some cases fraud convictions – for carer’s allowance overpayments.
The impact on carers caused public outrage and was likened to the Post Office scandal. Some carers reported suicidal thoughts after they were caught up in a system one described as like being “at the whim of a faceless machine”.
The DWP insisted Schofield’s departure was unrelated to the recent criticism of the department’s leadership. It remained committed to improving safeguards for vulnerable benefit claimants and overhauling the carer’s allowance.
Schofield said in a staff email: “There is never a good moment to step away from a job like this, but having passed my eight-year anniversary, now feels like a good time to pause and reflect on what I want to do next while spending more time with my family.”
A career civil servant for 35 years, Schofield has held the DWP top job since 2018. A year later he promised MPs he would fix problems with the carer’s allowance. Little changed, however, and tens of thousands more carers were plunged into debt.
He does not mention carer’s allowance in his email but points to what he calls the “massive achievement” under his leadership of the DWP’s expansion of universal credit, and his pride in the way the department responded to an explosion of demand for social security support during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A government-commissioned independent review into carer’s allowance published in November blamed systemic DWP leadership failures, poor benefit design, and flawed and unlawful administrative guidance.
The review’s author, the disability rights expert Liz Sayce, subsequently said she had been struck by the DWP’s “lack of organisational curiosity” about the dire impact of the failures on carers.
Prof Sue Yeandle, a member of the review’s advisory panel, also criticised the DWP’s response to the review, saying last month she had little confidence in senior departmental officials to fix carer’s allowance injustices.
Last week an influential MPs’ committee said it was “difficult to have confidence” in the ability of Schofield to oversee improvements to carer’s allowance. The work and pensions select committee chair, Debbie Abrahams, said there was a “culture of complacency” in the department.
Abrahams cited Guardian revelations about an internal DWP blogpost published in December in which a senior departmental director, Neil Couling, blamed carers rather than DWP systems for overpayments, a view at odds with ministerial policy.
“I’m afraid this indicates that a member of your senior team doesn’t accept the findings of the Sayce review (although the government has), which raises questions about the senior team as a whole under your leadership,” Abrahams said in a letter to Schofield.
Ministers have ordered about 200,000 cases to be reassessed in which carers potentially ran up overpayments after the DWP failed to follow earnings averaging rules. It estimates about 26,000 carers may have debts cancelled or reduced.
In a statement on Monday, Abrahams thanked Schofield for his long service to the DWP. She said the committee would “continue to hold the government to account” and ensure claimant safeguards were at the the heart of DWP policy.
A DWP spokesperson said: “Peter Schofield has served our country for more than three decades, and as DWP’s permanent secretary for eight years. He’s now stepping down to spend more time with his family.
“In that time, he has overseen the transformation of our services, the successful rollout of universal credit, and brought colleagues across the country together to overcome the challenges of the pandemic, when our customers needed us most.
“The secretary of state has thanked him for this service, and we will continue delivering for the people we serve.”
