An 86-year-old woman with severe dementia has been told by the Government that she no longer has to repay a £13,000 benefit debt after her story was featured in the Guardian.
Thea Kasparis, who is partially blind and has been bedridden for two years, has been ordered to pay back a huge amount of money after failing to inform authorities that her son had taken on care of her.
But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) would have known about this because her son, Andrew Kasparis, had started applying for Carer's Allowance. Mr Kasparis, 66, said it would have been “virtually impossible” for his mother to contact the DWP because she had serious health problems – which the department was aware of – and English was not her first language.
Her case was featured as part of a Guardian investigation which revealed tens of thousands of unpaid carers have had to repay more than £250 million in overpayments, much of which had accumulated through years of DWP mismanagement.
Thea Casparis, who has vascular dementia, heart failure and kidney disease, fell foul of a slightly different aspect of the complex rules surrounding carer's allowance, an £81.90-a-week benefit paid to around one million people who leave full-time work to care for a loved one.
The DWP said the grandmother-of-five should have notified them that her son had taken over her care in December 2019, when he began receiving an extra £50 a week on Universal Credit to care for his mother 24 hours a day.
At this point, Thea Kasparis lost her entitlement to the severe disability pension she had been receiving, but despite her health deteriorating – she was diagnosed with vascular dementia soon after – she failed to notify the DWP and was told this year that she owed £12,860 in overpayments up to December 2019.
Assuming the repayments are £51 a month, the DWP would continue to collect the money until 2034 – when Ms Casparis would be 106 years old. But the department confirmed this week, on behalf of the new pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, to her son that the debt had been forgiven.
The letter from the DWP said: “The Secretary of State has the power to waive recovery of all or part of monies due to departments (which means not seeking refunds) where there are very unusual circumstances. Each case will be considered individually and will only be applied where the particular facts of the case justify it.”
“In relation to the overpayment of Mrs Casparis' pension allowance, after careful consideration by staff acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, we have confirmed our decision to forgive the amount due, so this money will no longer have to be repaid.”
Andrew Kasparis said he hadn't told his mother about the debt because it would have been “devastating” for her. “She's been worried about it for a long time. As a family we're just relieved that it's all over,” Mr Kasparis said.
Kasparis, who lives with his mother, said there was “no sign of an apology” in the government letter but he did not expect one to come. “I think it's because the government doesn't want to accept any responsibility. That's the way they operate.”
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He is urging Kendall to change the rules requiring recipients of severe disability allowance – who are often very unwell, vulnerable and elderly – to inform the DWP of changes that the DWP should already be aware of.
Campaigners are hopeful that, following the Guardian report, Labour has promised to review the rules on care allowance, whose minister, Stephen Timms, has long been a vocal critic of the DWP's handling of the issue.
In May, before becoming Prime Minister, he called on Conservative ministers to “seize the issue without delay and ensure that carers are not subjected to the distress caused by these overpayments”.
A DWP spokesman said: “This overpayment has been forgiven and we apologise for any inconvenience caused to Mr Kasparis and his mother.”
