Almost exactly five years ago, Enrico La Rocca was hailed by MPs as a hero, a whistleblower whose tenacity had helped expose profound failures at the heart of the government’s vast benefits agency, resulting in tens of thousands of vulnerable unpaid carers being unfairly fined and prosecuted.
Without La Rocca – who was not named at the time – serious problems with carer’s allowance overpayments may never have come to light, the Commons work and pensions select committee concluded: without him the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) would never have been persuaded of the “urgent need to act”.
