Bereaved families who waited years to find out if relatives lost out on state pension are being informed the Government has abandoned further investigation of their cases, This is Money can reveal.
Many elderly women died while unwittingly being underpaid untold sums in a state pension scandal uncovered by former Pensions Minister Steve Webb and This is Money.
It has long been feared some families might never see a penny, because until we revealed the debacle the Department for Work and Pensions used to destroy records four years after the death of a pensioner and their surviving spouse.
Now readers are contacting us to say they have received letters from the DWP admitting it has given up on their late mothers’ cases.
Webb says: ‘For people who have waited for years for a response from the Government, it is pretty shocking to get a letter out of the blue saying that nothing can be done because the records have been destroyed.
‘This will almost certainly turn families into private detectives having to dig out any records they can find in order to challenge the DWP if they think underpayments have occurred.’
Steve Webb: If the Government says it has no records then find as much paperwork as you can
The letters say in response to questions about mothers first lodged four years ago: ‘You asked if they were underpaid state pension. We apologise for the delay in replying to your enquiry.
‘As [name] passed away on [date] we no longer retain their state pension records and therefore cannot review [name’s] award. The rules governing the retention of customer information are determined by UK law.
‘Unfortunately, we are unable to take any further action on your enquiry.’
One daughter who received a letter asked us whether she was just being dismissed, adding that she could not believe it had taken all this time just to be told the DWP cannot look into it.
Several years ago, the Government launched a website so the next of kin of people potentially underpaid state pension could request information, following pressure from campaigners and MPs.
We also understand that they started retaining all state pension records after we discovered some – most especially those involving older married women and widows – were riddled with errors.
The Department for Work and Pension was asked for comment but did not respond in time before publication.
Have YOU received a letter saying DWP will no longer investigate a late relative’s case?
Steve Webb, who is This is Money’s retirement columnist and a partner at pension consultant LCP, offers the following advice for those in this position.
‘If the Government says it has no records then the main way to raise potential underpayments will be for people to find as much paperwork that they can.
‘The gold standard of documentation is letters from DWP, but other information such as bank statements can help to prove what pensions were paid.
‘If you are tracking down old bank statements for a late relative, it would be most useful to narrow it down to the months just before and after their spouse reached state pension age, or just before and after their spouse died.
‘If this paperwork shows that something was not right, DWP should be required to investigate.’
Had a DWP letter and still want to pursue it further? Write and tell us your late relative’s story at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.
Some beneficiaries received tens of thousands in state pension arrears
While some bereaved families may never know if their relatives unfairly lost out on state pension, others have received vast sums.
We covered the cases of two daughters who separately received sums of £42,000 and £71,000 because their late mothers were underpaid state pension for more than a decade before dying in their nineties.
And we reported on a couple of cases where widows were owed more than £100,000 after being deprived of the correct state pension for decades.
However, in both cases they had dementia and sadly never learned of their huge backpayments, which their families received and used to pay for their care.
More recently, bereaved people have accused the DWP of leaving them hanging for months after sending letters about possible errors in their late relatives’ state pensions.
When we investigated, some beneficiaries belatedly received thousands of pounds while others were told they were owed nothing after all.
A few years ago, it emerged the biggest state pension underpayment the DWP had found so far was £128,448, and the earliest dated back to 1985.
