Rip off: DWP to take no further action to compensate millions who lost thousands of pounds of extra pensions

Posted on March 31, 2022 by davidhencke

Peter Schofield,permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions

Those following the highly complicated story of the estimated 11 million who have lost extra pension payments because they are no longer entitled to a guaranteed minimum pension uprating every year after the new state pension was introduced in 2016 have received a further blow.

Despite further pressure for an explanation from the House of Commons Works and Pensions Committee Peter Schofield, permanent secretary at the DWP, has ruled that no further action to inform people is necessary.

The people affected were a large but distinct group. They were people who were contracted out of SERPS by their employer but were told they would receive an index linked guaranteed minimum pension. This arrangement was scrapped when the new state pension was introduced in 2016 for anyone in the private sector – but remains for public sector workers.

The money they have lost is anything from a few pounds a week to tens of thousands of pounds over the lifetime of their pension. This decision was never debated in Parliament or included in the Pensions White Paper. Just as with the 50swomen and divorcees, women are the most affected.

Two people complained to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and won £1250 compensation between them for maladministration. Given the numbers involved you would have thought many more would have got compensation. In fact no one else has.

This is not surprising given the DWP ignored the remedy the Ombudsman suggested and put out a factsheet on their site without even an accompanying press release to say it had done it. The factsheet can be found here.

The Commons Work and Pensions Committee took it up with Peter Schofield, the DWP’s permanent secretary, and pressed for an explanation. The MPs have now got it.

The reply from Peter Schofield is here. He explains the factsheet was deliberately tested on people who did not know anything about pensions to prevent bias and 6,922 had viewed it. He claims that 57 per cent of people who saw it said it was ” useful”. Presumably 43 per cent thought it wasn’t.

Just five people put in a claim and none got it

When it comes to inquiries triggered by the website you can count them on one hand. Just five people, none of them eligible.

The DWP explanation why they believe this does not matter is to say the least interesting. He claims that the transitional arrangements for the new pension mean that someone could gain an extra £38.42 a week -presumably referring to the triple lock.

But the triple lock refers to everybody’s pension – it is not just for those who were contracted out. Also it is not a triple lock at the moment – as 12 million pensioners have lost out by not including the higher rise in earnings. And I notice Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, did NOT reaffirm it was coming back for next year’s pension rise at the recent spring statement. In fact he didn’t mention pensioners at all.

A DWP spokesperson said in response to my story:

“We encourage anyone who is concerned to read the online factsheet and contact us if they think they have been affected.

“The publication of the factsheet is the final step in the Department meeting the Ombudsman’s recommendations on this issue.”

All this to me has wider implications -particularly for the 50swomen still hoping for compensation via the Ombudsman route. The exercise on GMP pensioners resulted in victory for the two complainants who proved there had been maladministration. But not one other person got any money – a complete failure for the Ombudsman.

Bad news for the 50swomen wanting pension compensation

It would be like the six 50swomen complainants over maladministration getting compensation but the DWP devising a way of ensuring the rest of the 3.8 million get nothing.

There has been much talk from some MPs and campaigning groups claiming the women are entitled to £10,000 or payments of up to £20,000. At the moment that is just wishful thinking because it depends on the willingness of the DWP to pay out. The case illustrated by those entitled to compensation for losing their GMP indexation shows the DWP has no intention of doing so if it can get away with it.

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Delays, miscalculations and unanswered calls: How the DWP is cheating first time pensioners

Posted on March 9, 2022 by davidhencke

Chaos inside the Department for Work and Pensions

As 1950s born women finally get their first pension at the age of 66 a new problem is emerging.

The chaos inside the DWP , which is coping both with new applications for pensions and having to pay back over 100,000 people who it cheated out of their pension in the past, has now spread to first time pensioners. As already revealed by this blog the DWP has secretly put through a ” drop and go” scheme and decided to prioritise simple cases – nearly always men – over complicated ones, such as widows entitled to past Serps payments to their husband’s pension and divorced women.

As a result the pension help line can’t cope, staff handling cases have not been properly briefed, and barely properly trained. People are starting to wait months beyond the due date when they get their pension. And when they get it the calculations can be wrong.

To illustrate this scandal one of my blog readers, Pauline Hinder, a 1950s born woman, who has kept meticulous records of her pension entitlement, and is a supporter of BackTo60, kept a diary of her trials and tribulations with the Department for Work and Pensions in trying to get her correct pension.

The story does have a happy ending but only because a former Liberal Democrat pensions minister, Sir Steve Webb, intervened on her behalf. Until then she was at a dead end.

DWP’s pension estimate was less than half Pauline was entitled

If that hadn’t happened she would have lost tens of thousands of pounds over the lifetime of her pension. They offered her a pension of just under £69 a week. Her real pension entitlement was £141.84 a week -more than DOUBLE the money they offered her.

Unlike many people she had records which could prove what they should pay her. But getting through to the DWP proved impossible.

As her diary reveals : “

“rang 08007310469 opt 2 then opt 4then opt 2

Spoke to Lee 10.20 He said I had to ring 08007317898 ‘new claim’ option – even though I’ve already made my claim!

Rang 08007317898 New claim opt 2 Then Hold for advisor

“Spoke to a polite man Anthony He was working from home ..but saw they’d received my letter of 6 pages of evidence to prove my entitlement was double their official pension quote yet couldn’t say when they’d received it. He said he’d flag it up to check but it would take 4 weeks…..I asked when 4 weeks started – he said today!

“I said no! Unacceptable – I’d phoned and written early in January and it was a 6 week response time then..

“I insisted a manager call me back I explained that the DWP had already underpaid a raft of earlier womens’ pensions and made amends/still making, without interest or compensation. Have they learned nothing – or are they committing corporate fraud as they are now repeating the same mistakes with a new generation of applicants.

” He was polite but batting me off with hogwash”

“He requested a callback within 24 hours for me. He was polite but batting me off with hogwash about no one to speak to, no supervisor blah blah. ..but he did put me on hold for a couple of minutes so I guess he was contacting someone from his home. “

As she says: “The DWP telephone line was useless….working from home, no managers, no access to screens telling them where matters were at. I sent all copies of my historical records supporting my correct position and their error in January and to date I have had no acknowledgement of that correspondence receipt but I know they’ve had it because I asked in one of the several pension helpline calls I made! The last helpline call I made I insisted a manager called.

” They called about an hour later but I think I was dog walking and missed the call. You can phone the number but it has a pre-recorded message saying they wanted to speak to me but they’ll call if they need to. They didn’t call again….”

Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb intervention meant it was sorted in 24 hours

In desperation she turned to Sir Steve Webb, the former pensions minister in the coalition government.

He intervened by calling the DWP on her behalf.

Sir Steve went to a Pensions Customer Care Manager called David at the DWP. He was very helpful and genuinely empathetic.

Sir Steve was involved and job done in under 24 hours. Written apology in 48 hours and revised pension award in 72 hours.

An apology from the DWP showing the right pension

Sir Steve told me: “I’ve generally tried to help a small number of existing and new state pension recipients where they have got stuck on a complex issue or where there appears to be an unresolved underpayment.

“In Mrs Hinder’s case she had clearly understood the rules and spotted when a more recent state pension forecast (and award) was far below the correct amount. I passed her details on to DWP who quickly accepted that an error had been made.

“I do remain concerned that despite all the focus on historic state pension errors, errors are still being made on new claims. Whilst Mrs Hinder’s case relates to quite a narrow and specific issue (a special concession for women who paid the ‘reduced stamp’) a more common error I still come across is newly retired widows who are not getting the inherited SERPS they are due from a late husband on top of their own new state pension It’s a trickle rather than a flood, but, as we know, only a small percentage of a very big number is a lot of individual cases.”

My take on this is that Pauline Hinder showed amazing initiative and finally got her pension. But Sir Steve Webb cannot be expected to intervene in every case as he wouldn’t have time to do his day job. What we need is proper system with enough trained staff to do the job. It is quite clear we haven’t got one and ministers are to blame, They should sort it.