A new report by the public spending watchdog on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) accounts has revealed that around 237,000 people over State Pension age have been underpaid a total of £1.46 billion. The National Audit Office (NAO) report said this was an increase of £429 million and some 105,000 older people on the DWP’s best estimate at the end of 2020-21.
The report, by Comptroller and Auditor General of the NAO, Gareth Davies, highlights that some underpayments go back as far as 1985. It also reveals that the DWP has “identified several new groups of pensioners potentially affected by underpayment, the most significant relating to Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP).
HRP was a scheme to help protect parents’ and carers’ State Pension credits while they stayed home to look after children and was replaced by National Insurance credits in 2010. However, these were not recorded accurately on National Insurance records.
