A new group of people appear to have errors on their State Pension which could result in annual underpayments of around £2,000. Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb, who is now a partner at LCP (Lane Clark and Peacock) recently said evidence suggests many people have been underpaid, and are now owed a back payment.
The former Lib Dem MP said the group consists of those who claim the New State Pension, who were already widowed when they retired. This is a bit complicated and relates to inherited State Pension, as reported by the Daily Record, and it may be easier for people to check how much they should be receiving – LCP has developed an online tool which you can use here.
Sir Steve said: “Having had to spend years checking hundreds of thousands of historic State Pension calculations for errors, you would hope that DWP would be making sure that new claims are handled correctly. But we have found worrying evidence that this is not the case.
“There seems to be a particular problem for people who are widows or widowers when they claim their State Pension. In some cases DWP seems to have failed to automatically add any inherited State Pension they were due from a late partner. These cases may well be the tip of an iceberg.” Sir Steve is now urging DWP to “to launch an urgent investigation into the scale of this problem.”
In general, the new group appears to include those who were widows or widowers at the point when they claim their New State Pension and where either the spouse who has died reached pension age before April 6, 2016 or where they died before April 6 2016, Sir Steve said.
The exact amount of inherited State Pension depends on individual circumstances, but could be higher if the late spouse was an employee, rather than self-employed and the widowed spouse is not receiving a widow’s pension from a company pension scheme (as this may replace part of any inherited State Pension due).