Research and analysis

State Pension underpayments: progress on cases reviewed to 31 October 2023

Published 30 November 2023

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

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 National Statistics publications.

This publication updates the previous release of 23 March 2023 on the number of cases checked as part of a State Pensions correction exercise which began in January 2021.

1. 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.

2. Progress so far

Between 11 January 2021 and 31 October 2023, the checking process has identified 82,323 underpayments, owed a total of £497.0 million.

Category	Cases reviewed [footnote 1]	Underpayments identified [footnote 2]	Average arrears payment [footnote 3]	Total amount repaid
Married (Cat BL)	270,024	37,488	£5,931	£220.3 million
Widowed	240,786	17,894	£12,383	£219.9 million
Over 80 (Cat D)	83,154	26,941	£2,245	£56.7 million

Note, totals may not add due to rounding.

3. 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 Department for Work and Pensions (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.

4. Statistics enquiries

For statistics enquiries only, email: statepensioncorrectionexercise.managementoffice@dwp.gov.uk

For media enquiries please contact the DWP press office.

1. 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. ↩

2. 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. ↩

3. This average includes cases where the arrears amount owed is £0 due to offset of overpaid benefit. ↩