Payments company’s tech failure leaves thousands of disabled people struggling to pay their care workers

A catastrophic technology failure has left thousands of disabled people across the country who rely on social care struggling to pay their personal assistants (PAs).

The failure has hit people who use direct payments to arrange council-funded care and support in their own homes.

The problems have affected pre-paid cards that have money loaded on them by a council, allowing a disabled person to use that card to pay their PA, agency or other care costs.

More than 100 councils across Britain use the service, which is run by Prepaid Financial Services (PFS), which itself is part of EML Payments, based in Brisbane, Australia.

The card system also allows councils to manage and monitor direct payments securely while giving providers of support, including disabled people’s organisations, access to run accounts on behalf of disabled people.

Disability News Service (DNS) is aware of at least four local authorities where service-users have been affected since the problem first struck on 13 July, but it is believed to have hit disabled people in many more areas.

Two disabled people from Hounslow contacted DNS to say they were unable to use their prepaid cards.

One of them, Fiona Jarvis, told DNS that the lack of communication from both the company and the council had been “disgraceful”.

She was unable to access funds in her account on 13 July to pay her PAs, and initially failed to secure any response from PFS, although the company eventually apologised “for the inconvenience caused by the recent interruption to services” and said it was “actively working to resolve any issues with the utmost of urgency”.

Hounslow council just offered her “platitudes”, she said.

She said the problems had left her “extremely upset” as she had no funds left on her overdraft and did not know how she would pay the week’s care bill.

She said: “It’s extremely, stressful and distressing.

“Not only do I have to contribute to my care and work to finance it, but I also now have to tolerate a company and system that won’t let me access money I know is there.

“I have been reduced to tears of frustration on more than one occasion. It’s had a negative effect on my health as stress directly impacts on MS and my spasticity.

“If I can’t pay for care I will have to rely on friends and neighbours, which is embarrassing and demeaning. I’m panicking just thinking about it.”

She estimates she has spent more than 10 hours on the phone trying unsuccessfully to access the funds in her direct payments account.

She said: “I’m angry and frustrated. I hope they get sued and go out of business. Their system is rubbish.”

Another of those who found they could not use their pre-paid card was Anne Pridmore, from Leicestershire, director of the user-led organisation Being the Boss, which supports disabled people who employ PAs.

She said she was particularly concerned because a disabled person who takes on direct payments becomes “responsible for everything to do with employment”.

She said she feared her PAs could take her to court for non-payment of their wages, which was “what a lot of people are saying on Facebook”.

She said: “I am very concerned to think that staff aren’t getting their wages.”

Disabled people in Bristol and the surrounding areas were also affected.

West of England Centre for Inclusive Living (WECIL) said the “nationwide outage” had happened suddenly and without warning.

WECIL said in a post on its website: “PAs went unpaid, employers could not access their funds, and essential care and support arrangements were placed in jeopardy.

“One family working with WECIL was unable to go on a planned holiday abroad because they couldn’t book the respite care required in advance, as it had to be paid for via PFS.”

Within 24 hours of learning of the issue, WECIL developed a plan to make emergency payments directly to PAs.

By yesterday (Wednesday), it said, the system appeared to be “functional” for most managed accounts, though it said PFS accounts remained inaccessible to disabled people who manage their accounts themselves.

It said there had been a “significant” impact on individuals, with WECIL receiving calls “from distressed employers and unpaid PAs, some of whom were left without access to food or stranded abroad”.

EML said the PFS problems began nearly two weeks ago, when it decided it needed urgently to bring some processing services in-house, following repeated issues with a contractor that risked “complete loss of service” that could have lasted many weeks.

This caused severe problems with the payments system, preventing many disabled people from being able to use their cards.

Peter Lang, EML’s chief corporate development officer, told DNS yesterday (Wednesday): “We absolutely regret that there has been this dislocation.”

He said there were still “small cohort problems” and the company was continuing to work to fix the problems, and he added: “We are all over this like a rash.”

When DNS told him that the company’s helpline had said earlier this week that customers affected would have to contact their council, he apologised for the communications failure and the “frustration” and “stress and anxiety” caused to card-holders by the outage.

He said: “We have done everything we can to get these services back online as quickly as possible, mindful that they are very complicated services under the hood.”

He had not been able to estimate by noon today (Thursday) how many disabled people in Britain had been affected.

Hounslow council had failed to respond to questions from DNS by noon today.

A spokesperson for Leicestershire County Council said the problems with the card system began on Monday 14 July.

She said: “This is a national issue with the supplier of pre-payment cards, which mean that some of our service-users have experienced problems using their cards.

“We are aware that some of these problems have now been fixed by the supplier, and they are continuing to resolve the remaining issues.

“Around 3,500 people in Leicestershire hold pre-payment cards, but not all will be impacted by the issue.

“We have been in direct contact with those people who we know will be making payments at this time of the month, with support and advice on what to do if they need to make payments urgently and to ensure that alternative arrangements are in place.

“We appreciate the difficulties that this has caused and are doing everything we can to help.”

The council also placed a message on its website.

Another council affected was Devon County Council, with its direct payments team posting a message on the council’s website stating that “some customers have been experiencing problems with making payments on their pre-paid card”.

Picture by Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street 

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