DWP confirms 80,000 state pensioners due £5,600 after errors

Thousands of state pensioners are set to receive an additional £5,600, it has been confirmed. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has provided an update on its ongoing initiative to rectify State Pension payments.

The Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) exercise, which is set to continue until the end of the year, has so far addressed underpayments for pensioners who are either married or over 80 years old. The DWP found that a staggering £736 million is owed to those who are either receiving too little or not receiving any pension at all.

Those with insufficient National Insurance contributions to qualify for any Basic State Pension may be entitled to a pension through their spouse or civil partner's NI contributions. This is known as a Category BL State Pension and could provide them with a Basic State Pension of up to £101.55 per week (at 2024-2025 rates).

Furthermore, individuals who have reached the age of 80 and are receiving no Basic State Pension or less than the full amount can qualify for a Category D State Pension that increases their entitlement to £101.55 per week. Due to government errors, thousands have missed out on these amounts.

The DWP has reviewed the cases of more than 321,000 married pensioners and identified nearly 46,000 underpayments totalling £250.6 million. This means average arrears of just under £5,600 have been dispatched, reports Birmingham Live.

In the category of those over 80, nearly 91,000 cases have been examined. Over £68 million has been disbursed to well over 33,000 individuals, with each affected person receiving an average of £2,200.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stated that these two sets of completed underpayment corrections mean that almost 80,000 pensioners should by now have received up to £5,600 - and in some instances more - in their bank accounts. The DWP further added that thousands more elderly people are also set to be repaid missing amounts by the end of next month.

These are individuals who are widowed and receive a Basic State Pension of less than £169.50 a week (in 2024-2025 rates) but may also be able to derive pension entitlement from their late spouse or civil partner. This could then increase their Basic State Pension to up to £169.50 a week.

This group can also inherit between 50 per cent and 100 per cent of any Additional State Pension and 50 per cent of any Graduated Retirement Benefit. So far, £417 million has been repaid to widowed pensioners after almost 40,000 of 445,000 cases were found to be incorrect, with these underpayments set to be completed by the end of this year.

Two other types of State Pension errors are also under investigation. These include cases where Home Responsibilities Protection is missing from the records of stay-at-home parents and carers who did not include a National Insurance number on their Child Benefit claim.

Other instances relate to Universal Credit claimants who could be receiving less than their full pension entitlement because their National Insurance credits were not processed by HMRC.