Ministers say sorry as DWP pays back £7,000 it took from woman, 93

Ministers have formally apologised and repaid £7,000 to a 93-year-old woman whom they held responsible for running up benefits overpayment debts even though they were told she had dementia and was unable to manage her affairs.

- Patrick Butler, Josh Halliday

The case, which the minister for disability, Mims Davies, admitted was "disturbing", was brought to light by the Guardian as part of its investigation into allowance overpayments made to carers.

The growing scandal has seen tens of thousands of unpaid carers plunged into debt after they unwittingly broke strict benefits rules.

Some have been left with criminal fraud convictions after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pursued them through the courts.

The agreement to write off the debt of the 93-year-old, whom the Guardian has chosen not to name, comes as ministers promised to trial ways of sharing information with carers to try to prevent them building up months and years of overpayments.

The DWP said it would look into sending texts or emails to carer's allowance claimants when it received official notification that they had breached a weekly £151 earnings limit. This would encourage recipients to contact officials to sort out potential problems, and reduce the risk of overpayments building up.

The woman in this most recent case was paying back hundreds of pounds a month from her pension and life savings after officials accused her of failing to inform them of changes that made her ineligible for a benefit payment.

The DWP had rejected an appeal from her daughter and carer, Rose Chitseko, who said her mother had been too unwell to notify them as she had advanced Parkinson's disease.

Although the DWP could have used internal data to prevent the overpayment occurring in the first place, the woman's benefits continued to be paid and officials then chose to claw back more than £7,000 in overpaid benefits.