The long-term underpayment of state pensioners, an unknown number of whom will have died without receiving what they were owed, is a “shameful shambles”, according to a public spending watchdog.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates it has underpaid 134,000 pensioners, mostly women, over £1 billion of their state pension entitlement, with some errors dating as far back as 1985.
In January 2021, DWP started an exercise to correct the errors – the ninth such exercise since 2018, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.
