BENEFITS paid to more than 2,000 carers in Plymouth are 'unnecessarily complex and cause confusion', according to an influential group of MPs.

Chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee Edward Leigh said people looking after a sick or disabled family member often had to 'jump through unnecessary hoops' to get financial help from the Government.

Latest figures show there are 2,070 people in Plymouth claiming the benefit.

The committee said around one-fifth of carers who received benefits reported experiencing difficulties claiming.

Complications often resulted from a system which meant carers' benefits could have a knock-on effect on the claims of the person they were looking after, it declared.

Carers who wanted paid work did not receive the support needed, the cross-party committee found, with Jobcentres not being 'geared' towards providing this kind of help.

The MPs noted that of the £38million earmarked last year for employment support for carers, only £25million had so far been committed, and warned that the remaining £13million should not be diverted elsewhere in the JobCentre network as demand for help rose due to the recession.

Mr Leigh said: "Millions of people devote a large part of their time, often for many years, to caring for family or friends who are ill or disabled, but the value of the service these unpaid carers provide to society is not reflected in the quality of the Department of Work and Pensions' arrangements for providing them with financial and other support.

"Carers who apply for benefits should not have to wade through official written guidance and communications which can range from the hard-to-understand to the downright incomprehensible, and they should not have to be jumping through unnecessary hoops to apply for benefits and allowances," he said.

"Some carers want to combine their caring work with paid employment but Jobcentre Plus has hitherto simply not been geared well towards providing this kind of help.

"Staff work with a rigid template which does not help them to assess and respond to the inevitable complexity of carers' circumstances and availability for work, and the Jobcentre Plus target regime does not give Personal Advisers enough incentive to provide customers with part-time work.

"Last year the Department said that it would spend 'up to £38 million' on employment support for carers, and indeed some two-thirds of this sum has been committed: but at a time of rising unemployment, the worry is that the remaining third will be diverted away from improving services for well-deserving carers."