State Pension back payments of up to £12,383 for thousands of older women due this year
08.03.2024 - 20:03
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Tens of thousands of older people, mostly women, could be due backdated State Pension underpayments worth more than £12,000 before the end of this year as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) continues to identify and correct historical administration errors. However, it's important to be aware that most of the 12.7 million people receiving the State Pension are being paid the right amount of money.
The latest figures published by the DWP on its progress of case reviews for possible underpayments, show that between January 11, 2021 and October 31, 2023, the checking process has identified 82,323 underpayments, owed a total of £497 million. The data also indicates 595,964 State Pension awards have been reviewed, with average payouts ranging between £2,245 and £12,383.
The DWP State Pension LEAP ( Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice) exercise into underpayments affecting some married women (category BL), people in a civil partnership, widows and those over 80 (category D) is "on track" to be completed by the end of 2024.
In 2020, the DWP became aware of a number of individuals who had not had their State Pension increased, in accordance with the law, automatically when this should have occurred. This prompted the Department to take action to investigate the extent of the problem.
There are three broad categories of State Pension underpayments:
The State Pension LEAP exercise is the DWP’s largest underpayment correction exercise in progress. It has been established to identify where State Pension underpayments may have occurred in respect of the following groups of people:
The number of cases reviewed, arrears identified and payments made between January 2021 and October 2023 are listed below. The next