A new FOI reply received by Steve Webb has revealed that there is a risk of millions of historic state pension records being deleted, making it virtually impossible to correct past errors in state pension payments.
Multiple errors in state pension payments have been admitted by the DWP in recent years, and in some cases the people affected died before things could be put right. Out of an estimated 194,000 people (mostly women) affected by errors relating to ‘home responsibilities protection’, 43,000 died having never benefited from HRP. These deceased women were underpaid an estimated £127m.
It is possible to get errors fixed even after someone has died, with the money due being paid to the heirs. But once DWP pension records have been deleted this becomes almost impossible, unless the family have very detailed historic records about the person who died.
Normally, pension records are deleted by DWP four years after someone dies, but this deletion was put on hold in 2021 whilst the Department investigated another batch of state pension errors (affecting married women, widows and the over 80s). That correction exercise is now complete and there is a risk that records all the way back to 2017 will now be wiped, making it impossible for families to get justice for their late loved one.
LCP Partner Steve Webb has been investigating this issue and tabled an FOI request to DWP to ask about plans for deletion of records. Whilst the temporary embargo on deletions (started in 2021) is still in place, the FOI reply says:
“Once the embargo is lifted, then we will look at deletion of records that are no longer required and re-apply the retention policy”.
With roughly 500,000 people over state pension age dying each year, a decision to now delete data for deaths in 2017-2020 inclusive (which were originally retained but are more than four years old), would result in roughly 2 million records being deleted. Some of these would include women who missed out on HRP and whose family could no longer get things put right.
Steve Webb has now written to the Permanent Secretary at the DWP, Sir Peter Schofield, asking him to ensure that these records are retained for as long as they may be needed to clear up any outstanding state pension errors.
Commenting, Steve Webb said:
“I often hear from people who are trying to sort out errors in the state pension of loved ones who are no longer with us, but are told nothing can be done because the records have been destroyed. Whilst we cannot get back the records that have already been deleted, it is essential that DWP does not now delete millions more records, especially given the live process of trying to fix errors around Home Responsibilities Protection. The least we can do for people who were never paid the right pension is to do all we can to make sure that at least their families get the money they missed out on”.
