Rose Chitseko’s mother, who is 93 in April, was always meticulous about her money. As a child during the second world war, she learned to hold on to the pennies in her pocket. It was a trait she later held dear as a single mother with bills to pay.
“She was the strong, proud woman who had looked after herself and me all her life and managed her finances,” said Chitseko, 62. “It was a matter of pride that she kept on top of everything.”
Yet despite this lifelong commitment, Chitseko’s mother, who has advanced Parkinson’s and dementia, finds herself at the sharp end of the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) “outrageous” welfare rules.
The DWP is forcing the grandmother of four to pay back more than £7,000 – more than a third of her life savings – after she failed to notify it about a change in her circumstances five years ago when she was in the early stages of dementia and 88 years old.
The penalty stems from early 2019, when Chitseko started receiving £64.60 a week in carer’s allowance to look after her mother, who the Guardian is not naming, when she became unable to care for herself.
The DWP’s rules state that the 92-year-old should have informed the department at this point that she was no longer eligible for the severe disability premium part of the pensions credit she received. Yet because of her illness, she did not do so.
“It wasn’t realistic for her to notify the DWP,” said Chitseko, a former adult social care worker. “She’d had Parkinson’s for seven years. We were setting up power of attorney because she was already losing her grip on her ability to manage her affairs.”
In 2022, the DWP wrote to Chitseko’s mother – who had by now deteriorated further – to say that she had been overpaid more than £8,000 in pensions credit and would have to pay it back.
Chitseko appealed against the penalty with the help of the Harlow Advice Centre, asking the government to use its discretion to write off the debt because her mother “wasn’t in a fit state to notify them and didn’t realise she had to notify them”.
But their pleas fell on closed ears. The final bill was reduced slightly to £7,135.08 to cover the period when carer’s allowance was being received, rather than when it was applied for, but that was the DWP’s only concession.
“It just so outrageous, really, that they choose to persecute a frail, sick old woman for what to them is a relatively small amount – for something that she was not capable of managing,” said Chitseko. “When the super-rich get away with millions, it’s the injustice of it, the unfairness of it. It’s just really upsetting and frustrating”.
Chitseko’s mother, a former laboratory technician, is paying off the DWP penalty from her £20,000 life savings and in £600 chunks from her monthly pension.
The case, one of dozens involving the families of unpaid carers who have spoken to the Guardian, is another example of Britain’s chronically disconnected welfare system.
The DWP would have known that Chitseko’s mother was no longer eligible for the severe disability premium because her daughter had given the department her mother’s national insurance number and other details when applying for a carer’s allowance.
The department could, in theory, have stopped the payments itself. Instead, it placed the burden on the recipient; in this case an elderly vulnerable woman with early stage dementia.
And when the DWP realised three years later that she had been overpaid a severe disability benefit, instead of asking whether the department was at fault or whether she ought to have known the rules given her age and illness, it sought immediately to claw back the money.
Chitseko said she could not bring herself to tell her mother what the DWP had done. “I felt she couldn’t deal with it,” she said. “For her, £7,000 is a huge sum. She’s from the wartime generation, where £100 is a lot.
“If she knew that this amount of her life savings was being asked for … From her point of view, she would feel as if she was the guilty party. It would be extremely upsetting.”
Callout
After being contacted by the Guardian, the DWP said it was “reviewing this case as a matter of urgency” and had suspended repayments. It added: “When recovering overpayments, we carefully balance our duty to protect the public purse with helping individuals manage their repayments – with strong safeguards in place.”
