State Pension underpayments: progress on cases reviewed to 30 September 2024
Published 7 November 2024
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
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This publication is classified as management information. These documents are published in the interest of transparency and are not part of our regular Official and Accredited Official Statistics publications.
This publication updates the previous release of 22nd July 2024, within the Department for Work and Pensions’ Annual Report and Accounts, on the number of cases checked as part of a State Pensions correction exercise which began in January 2021.
Purpose of the release
This analysis is published for the purpose of transparency and accountability.
It includes information on the progress of the exercise to check and correct individual cases, and the amount of arrears repaid to date.
Progress so far
Between 11 January 2021 and 30 September 2024, the checking process has identified 119,050 underpayments, owed a total of £736 million. DWP has completed two of the three customer groups: the Cat BL and Cat D cases, as reported in the 2023 to 2024 ARA (see note 1). Progress remains on track for the Widowed cases to be completed by the end of 2024.
| Category | Cases reviewed (see note 2) | Underpayments identified (see note 3) | Average arrears payment (see note 4) | Total amount repaid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Married (Cat BL) | 321,142 | 45,907 | £5,591 | £250.6m |
| Widowed | 445,188 | 39,706 | £11,905 | £417.2m |
| Over 80 (Cat D) | 90,720 | 33,437 | £2,202 | £68.2m |
Notes
1. The numbers in the table have changed for Categories BL and D since the 2023 to 2024 ARA publication, due to customers having up to two years to provide further information for their case.
2. Cases may be checked for more than one potential cause of error; therefore, an individual State Pension claim may be counted in more than one category.
3. These are cases for which a current or historical underpayment of State Pension has been identified. This may include cases for which a corresponding overpayment of another benefit (for example, Pension Credit) has occurred as a result, meaning that there was no net underpayment to the individual as well as some cases where the customer is deceased, and the department has so far been unable to identify an estate to which to pay the arrears due.
4. This average includes cases where the arrears amount owed is £0 due to offset of overpaid benefit.
Statement of compliance with the code of practice of statistics
The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) is built around 3 main concepts:
- trustworthiness – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics
- quality – is about using data and methods that produce statistics
- value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs
Trustworthiness
Progress on the State Pension Legal Entitlement and Administrative Practices (LEAP) exercise is based on DWP management information supplied through:
- Individually reviewed cases to find customers that have been underpaid and the amount they are owed, and to learn why they have been underpaid.
- The Department’s computer system that holds alive and deceased State Pension cases.
Quality
DWP analysts have engaged with operational staff to ensure the quality of the data is fit-for-purpose and have analysed data to help understand the customers most likely to have been underpaid, whilst offering a robust sense check of values against other outputs for comparable periods.
Correction rates and arrears amounts are likely to change as the exercise progresses, due to varying characteristics of the individuals affected and recruitment of additional staff to correct cases.
Value
This release provides a progress update on the State Pension LEAP exercise, together with context for those figures.
To support financial planning and management of departmental business, figures have been seen in advance by ministers and officials. This is in line with the Code, where pre-release access does not apply for releases based on routine management information – as covered in para 3.6 of the National Statistician’s guidance, February 2018.
Statistics enquiries
For statistics enquiries only, email: statepensioncorrectionexercise.managementoffice@dwp.gov.uk