Specific groups of older women may be due State Pension back payments of more than £5,000 this year

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced last week that an update on the progress it is making to identify and rectify historical State Pension errors will be published before the end of this month.

Pensions Minister Paul Maynard MP said that the report will cover progress made up until the end of February this year.This new update will provide four specific groups of women who may have been underpaid an indication on the number of cases reviewed, cases corrected and the average amount of State Pension arrears paid out.

The last figures published by the DWP at the end of November, show that between January 11, 2021 and October 31, 2023, the checking process has identified 82,323 underpayments, owed a total of £497 million.The State Pension Underpayments Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) exercise is checking for potential errors affecting married women (category BL), people in a civil partnership, widows and those over 80 (category D).These case reviews were due to be completed before the end of 2023 and were reportedly “on track” to be corrected.Citizens Advice online has a dedicated State Pension section which also includes a handy checklist for people to quickly identify whether they may have been underpaid.

It’s worth noting that historical errors affect mostly women living across the UK.The checklist states that if you reached State Pension age before April 2016, you might have been underpaid if you’re either: Women over State Pension age Men over State Pension age Citizens Advice adds: “If you’ve been underpaid, the DWP will probably have contacted you and sent you a payment.