Over one million pensioners were underpaid a staggering £530 million last year because of mistakes by government officials, new analysis has revealed.
Processing errors meant just over 10 percent of all State Pension cases had underpayments, impacting around 1.3 million pensioners, the Daily Express reported this evening (April 30).
The average amount underpaid was more than £400 per person and came at a time when many people were struggling with the cost of living crisis.
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The colossal underpayments were discovered because the government is now actively carrying out checks rather than using estimates. This suggests underpayments could have been much higher in previous years.
Ex-pensions ministe,r Sir Steve Webb, said £530 million is an ”extraordinary” amount of money.
Sir Steve, a partner at pension consultants LCP, said: “It’s an extraordinary amount of money to miss out, especially during a cost of living crisis. It is all the more shocking that proper checks have not been done for more than 15 years.
“These figures are the first year that checks have been done properly - they’ve actually been phoning people up - and unsurprisingly the underpayments are very high.”
Details of the underpayments were unearthed in official government documents about fraud and error in the benefits system. According to analysis by the Labour Party around one in 10 pensioners left short last year.
Overall, the data reveals that mistakes made by government officials cost benefits and state pension claimants £1.1 billion in the 2021-22 financial year.
Nearly one half (£530) were state pension underpayments. The figures show that 10.7 percent of all state pension cases had an underpayment due to official error, impacting around 1.3 million pensioners.
They also reveal how £140 million was underpaid to Universal Credit claimants in the same period while those on Employment and Support Allowance were left £130,000 short.
Some 1.8 million people were affected by underpayments overall.
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