The most recent report published by the National Audit Office on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) accounts for 2021-22 was released in October last year and revealed that around 237,000 older people have been underpaid their State Pension by a total of £1.46billion.
However, during a formal meeting with the Work and Pensions Committee earlier this month, DWP indicated that it has identified a further 100,000 potential underpayments during its ongoing correction exercise. Permanent Secretary at DWP, Peter Schofield, told the cross-party committee of MPs, chaired by Sir Stephen Timms: “We have found more cases of underpayment.”
He explained that due to a change in the scanning system during the exercise, a further 100,000 “potential” underpayments have been identified, which means that the sample of State Pension cases DWP will now look at for errors is 700,000 instead of 400,000. Mr Schofield said he thinks it could now take an extra year to complete the exercise given the current run-rate.
