The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
PATRICK BUTLER and Josh Halliday have been awarded the 2025 Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism.
In a Guardian campaign, the pair exposed the rigid rules and unfeeling bureaucracy that govern carer's allowance, revealing that carers had been prosecuted for accidentally claiming the allowance alongside part-time work, even when some of them had reported their earnings to the Department for Work and Pensions. In the case of one man, who was convicted for over-claiming 30p a week, the DWP has since acknowledged he made an innocent mistake. Labour has now set up an independent review of the allowance, and raised the earnings limit for those claiming it.
The 2025 awards ceremony was hosted at Bafta by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, who said: "Who cares?" He added: "This is the big question in Britain at the moment and the winners wrote brilliantly about these very people."
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."
An excerpt from the winners interview with Page 94, The Private Eye Podcast is here:
The 2025 Shortlist
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
The Guardian/Reuters Institute
Out of Sight: Missing People campaign
Brinkhurst-Cuff movingly told the story of Fiona Holm’s disappearance, asking why it was so overlooked. She supplemented her reporting with a wider investigation into how the media covers missing people.
Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday
The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
Vulnerable carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even when some of them had reported their earnings to the DWP. Labour has now set up an independent review.
Laura Hughes
Financial Times
Lead poisoning
In this deeply reported investigation into the effects of lead in paint and in the soil, Hughes asked a provocative question: will lead exposure one day be seen as a scandal on the level of asbestos?
Aaron Walawalkar & Harriet Clugston
Liberty Investigates in partnership with Sky News, Metro and The Guardian
Inside UK universities’ Gaza protest “crackdown”
The investigation unit at the human rights charity looked at British universities’ harsh measures against pro-Palestinian protests and activism on campus, and the institutions’ close cooperation with police.
Jim Waterson
LondonCentric
Lime bikes and broken legs
Waterson’s Substack newsletter uncovered a spate of broken legs caused by the heavy frames of Lime electronic bikes falling on their riders. Who was regulating this Californian company?
Abi Whistance
The Liverpool Post
Investigation into the Big Help Project
Whistance’s four-part investigation for the Liverpool Post newsletter exposed a housing charity that left residents of its homes living in dire conditions.
