The Guardian journalists Patrick Butler and Josh Halliday have won the Paul Foot award for their coverage of how vulnerable British carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming the allowance alongside part-time work.
The pair uncovered how carers were prosecuted even though many had tried to report their earnings to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Tens of thousands of carers have unwittingly fallen foul of earnings rules each year since the DWP permanent secretary Peter Schofield promised MPs in 2019 that new technology would eradicate the problem by preventing overpayments “in some cases before they happen”.
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.
In the case of one man, who was convicted for overclaiming 30p a week, the DWP has since acknowledged he made an innocent mistake.
Labour has since set up an independent review of the allowance and raised the earnings limit for those claiming it.
The 2025 awards ceremony on Tuesday was hosted at Bafta by the Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop, who said: “Who cares? This is the big question in Britain at the moment and the winners wrote brilliantly about these very people.”
Butler, the Guardian’s social policy editor, told the Private Eye podcast: “This is a story about injustices in the benefits system and how these injustices have inflicted debt, misery and untold stress on some of the most vulnerable and poorest people in our society who have dedicated their lives to looking after loved ones.”
Halliday, the north of England editor, said: “When you speak to these people it really affects you. This is devastating sums of money, people who are already living extremely difficult lives, trying to do their best, coping with the ongoing trauma of caring for a loved one.”
Padraig Reidy, chair of the judges, said: “This was an enraging and heartbreaking campaign on behalf of a group the government has called ‘unsung heroes’.
“You couldn’t read these articles without thinking of the Post Office scandal – another story of ordinary, decent people persecuted by an uncaring bureaucracy. It was in the best tradition of Paul Foot’s work.”
