If you were denied a state pension or received an unexpectedly low bonus when you turned 66, you should challenge that decision.
A joint investigation with Steve Webb, our columnist and former Minister for Pensions, has uncovered an increasing number of serious and new flaws, and we are not pleased that the Department for Work and Pensions are looking at women’s records properly.
Some married women stamp payers and/or child benefit claimants over the past few decades have not taken this into account when their state pension is calculated.
State pension blunders: Some older women erroneously denied payments at 66
Webb, now a partner at pensions consultant LCP, says: ‘I’ve now reached the stage where I’m starting from the assumption that a low or zero state pension bonus is incorrect.’
This is a damning indictment of the DWP’s ability to properly dispose of its funds – even after a previous scandal left elderly women with an estimated total loss of $1, 5 billion pounds. (That failure, also exposed by Webb and This is Money, is still a work in progress.)
It also reinforces the view that individual action needs to be taken if you are denied a state pension or only receive a suspiciously low amount.
Our latest story explains what to do, including information for submitting Webb and Here’s Money in case we can help.
If you think a family member or friend who reached state pension age in recent years may have missed out, please send them that link.
The women whose cases we’ve covered so far have lost tens of thousands of pounds over the course of a typical retirement, and some have had huge arrears.
A woman tragically died just before the state pension denial could be overturned, and her grieving family had to fight to receive her two years’ worth of money, a school case to shame the DWP.
Unfortunately, while the DWP says where it went wrong it is committed to fixing it, it has vehemently denied that it is currently reviewing all state pension denials.
In addition, the DWP’s response to Webb’s freedom of information request suggests it is simply performing more thorough checks in the future before notifying a woman that she is not entitled to any benefits. any state pension.
STEVE WEBB ANSWERS YOUR PENSION QUESTIONS
So it remains unclear whether the DWP systematically investigates past cases, and this is why we urge women to come forward asking for a review of salary bonuses. state pension is zero and low.
Admittedly that will be more difficult due to DWP’s lengthy call waiting times and phone lines now seem to be manned by people just receiving messages, not anyone with an opinion. state pension knowledge, who we understand have been redeployed to fix older bugs.
Feedback from readers shows that their messages aren’t sent anywhere useful, and any filtering systems that experienced staff review them must be faulty.
The women we dealt with and eventually found were wrongfully denied state pensions had previously called the DWP on their own to no avail.
And those with holes in their National Insurance records were not redirected to HMRC, which is responsible for fixing them before the state pension could be recalculated.
The best way to apply for a review request can be in writing – contact details are available here.
The failure to fix the state pension flaws is a stain on the record of the current Government, and in particular the politicians who have led the DWP in recent years, the Minister for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey and Pensions Minister Guy Opperman.
Both have repeatedly blamed historical mistakes and blamed previous regimes for a mess they now have to deal with, but this is a selective and unnecessary fallacy. for their own shortcomings.
By correlating their records in recent years, no one can doubt that Opperman’s predecessors would be under a lot of stress if similar problems were discovered while they were still in power.
It was Webb who tirelessly unearthed the low pay scandal and has since personally assisted many women in arranging their personal pensions, while staunch campaigner Ros Altmann has relentlessly called for and pushed urge the Government to act when wrongdoings are exposed.
Under Opperman, the DWP demonstrated a reluctance and lack of transparency in addressing the shocking mistakes that continued to surface throughout his follow-up.
After five years at DWP, Opperman’s legacy is still intact.
It includes the following: pension schemes made to claim what they are doing to combat climate change; Ministry of Transport medium term; an unfinished pension dashboard; unproven ‘collective’ pension; ineffective retirement credit campaigns that the private sector feels compelled to participate in to help during the current cost of living crisis; New parents still stand to lose their state pension because of the fault of taking advantage of innocent children; and fail when new retirees, both men and women, go unpaid and even go hungry for months.
It’s not good enough. The Botching state pension has long-term consequences for many women (almost always though not women) as it determines whether they receive their earned income in old age, and in The worst case scenario is to unjustly condemn them to poverty.
Notice to prevent this from happening to you, or anyone you know – here’s the link again.
