THE Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) needs a management and cultural overhaul to restore trust after the carer’s allowance scandal, a government adviser has warned.

Ministers commissioned a review by Professor Liz Sayce after it emerged unpaid carers had been unfairly hit with draconian penalties of as much as £20,000 after unknowingly running up overpayments of carer’s allowance benefit.

Hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers were left in debt, with some cases resulting in serious mental illness.

Prof Sayce’s review found the DWP system and leadership failures were responsible.

But senior DWP civil servant Neil Couling insisted carers were to blame for the department’s failures in an internal message to staff days after her review was published.

Prof Sayce said that his comments were “clearly not right” and expressed surprise at its “lack of organisational curiosity” and its reluctance to tackle the issue strategically, despite being aware of the issues for years.

She told the Guardian: “I was really distressed at the idea that the message would go to all the people working in DWP because as I have said a lot of people working in DWP want to do the right thing and probably that wasn’t the message that they’d taken from the review and what ministers had said.

“It’s very interesting how organisations behave when they feel they are threatened.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “We’ve accepted the vast majority of the Sayce review’s recommendations and we’re already making changes.

“We’ve hired extra staff to stop carers building up large debts, updated internal guidance, and made sure letters clearly explain what changes carers need to report.”