The deletion of millions of state pension records could potentially deprive thousands of people of their money

If the government removes old state pension records, thousands of families might lose out on money that is due to them

A former pensions minister has cautioned that the removal of millions of outdated state pension records would make it nearly impossible to fix previous mistakes in state pension payments.

Historic state pension errors are estimated to have impacted tens of thousands of people.

Several mistakes in state pension payments have been acknowledged by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) in recent years; in some cases, the individuals impacted passed away before the mistakes could be corrected.

From 1978 to 2010, an estimated £1 billion in home responsibilities protection (HRP) for state pensions was underpaid to individuals. This error primarily affected women who took time off work to care for disabled adults or children.

An estimated 194,000 people, primarily women, were impacted by mistakes pertaining to the protection of household duties; 43,000 of them passed away without ever receiving any benefits from HRP. An estimated 127 million dollars was underpaid to these women who passed away. National Insurance credits took the place of HRP in 2010.

Even after a death, mistakes can be corrected, and the heirs will receive the money that was owed. However, unless the deceased's family has extremely detailed historical records about them, this becomes nearly impossible once DWP pension records have been erased.

Errors in state pensions.

There is now a chance that millions of historical state pension records will be erased, leaving those who are owed money because of mistakes with nowhere to turn for justice, according to a new Freedom of Information request made by Steve Webb, a former pensions minister and current partner at consulting firm LCP.

DWP typically expunges pension records four years after a person's death. In 2021, this practice was halted while the Department looked into a new set of state pension errors that affected widows, married women, and people over 80.

There is a chance that records dating back to 2017 will be deleted now that the correction exercise is finished, which would prevent families from receiving justice for their departed loved one.

Although the embargo on deletions is still in effect as of right now, Webb, who has been looking into the problem of state pension payment errors, discovered in his FOI that there is no assurance that it will stay that way.

"Once the embargo is lifted, we will look at deletion of necessary records and re-apply the retention policy," the FOI response said.

It is imperative that no more records be erased.

Deleting data for deaths from 2017 to 2020 inclusive (which were initially kept but are older than four years) would result in the deletion of about 2 million records, since approximately 500,000 people over state pension age pass away annually.

According to Webb, some of these would include women who were not able to receive HRP and whose families were unable to make amends.

In a letter to Sir Peter Schofield, the Permanent Secretary at the DWP, he requests that he make sure these documents are kept for as long as it might be necessary to correct any unresolved state pension errors.

People who are attempting to correct mistakes in the state pension of departed loved ones are frequently told that nothing can be done because the records have been destroyed, according to Webb.

Even though the deleted records cannot be recovered, it is crucial that DWP refrain from erasing millions more records, particularly in light of the ongoing effort to correct errors related to Home Responsibilities Protection.

"The least we can do for those who never received the proper pension is to make every effort to ensure that their families receive the money they were not entitled to."

"We are dedicated to making sure pensioners receive the financial assistance they are entitled to, and we have examined over 900,000 customer records to date, with awards totaling over 900 million in arrears made," a DWP spokesperson stated.

"The deletion of state pension records has been put on hold because we are dedicated to fixing any errors that do occur.