The Department for Work and Pensions has issued an update to pensioners owed up to £12,000 in back payments.
Approximately 120,000 pensioners are believed to have been underpaid their state pension entitlements, having been identified through a special review called the Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (Leap) exercise.
Underpayments occured when individuals’ state pensions didn’t automatically increase with national changes, due to a system error. The DWP became aware this was happening in 2020.
The review was started to address the underpayments in the state pension system affecting three specific categories of pensioners, with only widowers remaining.
The DWP is working through cases, with payments completed for two groups – married (category BL) and over 80 (category D). Officials have stated that “progress remains on track” for the ‘widowed’ cases to be completed by the end of this year.
The department has been looking into these cases since the start of 2021, with 119,050 pensioners being owed and recieving an average payment of £11,905.
The DWP said it is committed to addressing these historical pension underpayments through the ongoing review process with officials focused on completing the remaining cases.
Cases are reviewed individually to find pensioners that have been underpaid and the amount they are owed, and to learn why they have been underpaid. There have been over 850,000 cases reviewed by the DWP with £736 million owed in total.
Almost 46,000 married pensioners (category BL) recieved an average payment of £5,591 and a total of £250.6 million repaid total.
Over 37,000 widowed pensioners recieved an average payment of £11,905 and a total of £417.2 million repaid total. Over 33,000 pensioners over 80 (category D) recieved an average payment of £2,202 and a total of £68.2 million repaid total.
This comes as pensioners across the country face a Christmas without the winter fuel payment, with a new study from Age UK claiming over seven million are turning down the heating and over a million are skipping meals to keep costs down.
Pensioners are instead urged to apply for Pension Credit, but there are long delays with this system due to a spike in demand and payouts aren’t expected until the end of winter.
