Thousands of people have been urged to check pension payments after errors by the Department for Work and Pension ( DWP ) left a former British Army soldier £3,000 a year worse off. The warning comes from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) after the DWP failed to inform 82-year-old Adrian Furnival of important changes to his state pension.
Thousands of other pensioners may have been let down in the same way and people in similar circumstances to the former soldier are being advised to check if they lost out. The ombudsman signaled the case was yet more evidence – following the controversy over pension changes for WASPI women – of poor communications by the DWP.
The problem for Mr Furnival and his wife, Sheila, aged 67, stemmed from the fact that they moved to Brittany in 1994 and were not given information by the DWP as they should have been. In addition to his state pension, Mr Furnival received Adult Dependency Increase (ADI) payments. This supplement was given to households when the main earner reached state pension age, but their partner did not.
Thousands of people have been urged to check pension payments after errors by the Department for Work and Pension
(Image: Getty)
The rules around ADI payments changed in the 2007 Pension Act, and no new claims for the supplement were accepted from 2010, with all payments to stop by April 6 2020. Those claiming the extra money were told about the change in 2010. However, Mr Furnival was not told until eight years later, in 2018, when he received an annual statement from the DWP, which told him his payments would drop by £250 a month.
He said: “It came as a shock to me. They sent the leaflet to us every year, so they could have told us at any point from 2010 onwards. The key issue for me is why I wasn’t told that my income would be going down by approximately £70 a week sooner. We only have our pensions as income, so we were worried about what we were going to do to make ends meet.”
The 82-year-old noted that if the benefits and pensions department had informed him at the same time as others, then he would have had eight more years to plan for the shortfall. He added: “That would have given us enough time to do something, my wife or I could have tried to get a job. By 2018 we had no way of replacing that income.
“This could have been handled much better, and I knew that it could well affect other people in the same situation. When I first queried it with DWP, they took nine months to reply, and it felt like we just went round and round. Which is why I then raised it with my MP and brought my complaint to the Ombudsman.”
After an investigation, the Ombudsman found that the DWP failed to properly communicate the changes. It was also found to have failed to respond to his initial queries and complaints in a timely way. The Ombudsman recommended that DWP apologise and pay Adrian £675 for the injustice he suffered.
The number of people living abroad and entitled to ADI is unknown, but in May 2019, a year before ADI ended, the DWP told Parliament that 10,817 people were still getting paid ADI each month. The Ombudsman recommended that the benefits department also provide a “comparable remedy” to anyone who approaches them in a similar situation. Going forward, the Ombudsman said government bodies needed to make sure their communication with the public is always “fair, clear, and consistent”.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, said: “Poor communication from Government departments damages trust in public services. DWP has a history of failing to communicate pension policy changes clearly and failing to learn from its mistakes. In Adrian’s case, this meant that, without the right information, he lost the opportunity to prepare for his retirement. It also caused him unnecessary financial worry.
“Anyone who believes they have had a similar experience to Adrian should contact DWP. DWP has complied with our recommendations and will provide a comparable remedy to anyone who approaches them with a similar situation.”