A state pensioner faced an almost year-long ordeal with the DWP to secure back payments worth £17,700.
Retired administration manager Christine Plant was owed the amount as she was missing Home Reponsibilitie Protection (HRP) from her National Insurance (NI) record, an issue thought to be affecting hundreds of thousands of women.
She had to battle with both HMRC and the DWP with several lengthy phone calls to finally be paid what she was due.
The HRP scheme ran between 1978 and 2010, with HRP added to a person’s record to fill in their NI contributions towards their state pension while they were out of work caring for a child or a sick or disabled person. The missing HRP issue mostly affects women who were out of work caring for their children.
In the case of Ms Plant, she was due a £28 increase to her weekly state pension, increasing her entitlement to £171 a week, accruing her back payments of more than £17,700, reports This Is Money.
She first contacted HMRC in November 2023 as she thought she may be owed payments for the time she was off work raising her children.
The tax authority replied to her the same month to confirm she was owed some cash, but she struggled to follow up her claim.
She called three times and was told her case would be marked as ‘urgent’ but she didn’t hear anything more. She once made a three-hour phone call and was passed around different departments to no avail.
She said: “I rang HMRC again. I said it’s been a year. I said if I owed you any money you wouldn’t wait this long.”
Her case was finally sorted out 11 months after she first contacted HMRC with her query.
A spokesperson for the DWP told This Is Money: “We have apologised for the delay in processing Mrs Plant’s award. Where errors do occur, we are committed to resolving them as quickly as possible.”
The Government starting send out letters about the HRP issue over a year ago. Some 210,000 pensioners are set to receive a portion of underpayments totalling £1.5 billion, with each case owed on average £5,000.
In a case where a person has died, a representative can put in a claim on their behalf.
The Government website had a tool you can use to check if you were eligible for Home Responsibilities Protection.
The online HRP tool can be used to apply for HRP, for full tax years (6 April to 5 April) between 1978 and 2010, if any of the following were the case:
- you were claiming Child Benefit for a child under 16
- you were caring for a child with your partner who claimed Child Benefit instead of you
- you were getting Income Support because you were caring for someone who was sick or disabled
- you were caring for a sick or disabled person who was claiming certain benefits.
