About 237,000 state pensioners have been underpaid a total of £1.46 billion, according to the public spending watchdog. A National Audit Office (NAO) report on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) accounts said this was an increase of £429 million and 105,000 pensioners on the department’s best estimate at the end of 2020-21.
Some underpayments date back as far as 1985, according to the report, by Comptroller and Auditor General of the NAO, Gareth Davies. This increase is because the department has now undertaken new computerised scans of its data, which it was unable to conduct last year, to identify cases its staff need to review, the NAO said.
The department has now conducted all the scans it needs to identify potentially affected cases, but will not know the full extent of the underpayments until it has fully reviewed every case. The department estimates the outstanding liability, after payments made up to March 31 2022, at £1.35 billion.
