The UK Carer's Allowance overpayments saga: Structural violence in digital welfare state administration?

The harsh treatment of carers by the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the focus of this article. By prioritising fraud detection rather than beneficiary well-being, the administration of the Carer's Allowance (CA) payment, or more specifically the overpayments saga, has to date caused considerable social harm. Our analysis of it shows striking similarities with the Australian Centrelink's automated debt raising and recovery system, the Online Compliance Intervention (Robodebt). In this article, we take a first step in delineating core attributes of structural violence, to explore if they are present in the CA overpayments saga. The findings show that what has been unfolding manifests as a form of structural violence, belying any reductive framing of it as a digital welfare scandal, an isolated case of maladministration, a bureaucratic over-reach or a faulty algorithm in need of correction. The findings make us reckon with how welfare states can become imbued with a violence, rooted in their culture and systems, that serves the prevailing political, social and economic order. It is anticipated that by elucidating key attributes of structural violence, what is overwhelmingly an explanatory theoretical concept may have greater relevance and usefulness for future empirical study in the welfare and social security fields.