Research and analysis

State Pension underpayments: progress on cases reviewed to 29 February 2024

Published 21 March 2024

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

This publication is classified as management information. These documents are published in the interest of transparency and are not part of our regular Official and National Statistics Publications. 

This publication updates the previous release of 30 November 2023 on the number of cases checked as part of a State Pensions correction exercise which began in January 2021. 

1. Purpose of the release 

This analysis is published for the purpose of transparency and accountability. 

It includes information on the progress of the exercise to check and correct individual cases, and the amount of arrears repaid to date. 

2. Progress so far 

Between 11th January 2021 and 29th February 2024, the checking process has identified 97,016 underpayments, owed a total of £571.6m.  

Category	Cases reviewed  (see note 1)	Underpayments identified  (see note 2)	Average arrears payment (see note 3)	Total amount repaid
Married (Cat BL)	317,955	43,367	£5,713	£243.8m
Widowed	298,099	21,175	£12,486	£262.3m
Over 80 (Cat D)	89,634	32,474	£2,192	£65.5m

Notes: 

1. Cases may be checked for more than one potential cause of error; therefore, an individual State Pension claim may be counted in more than one category. 

2. These are cases for which a current or historical underpayment of State Pension has been identified. This may include cases for which a corresponding overpayment of another benefit (for example, Pension Credit) has occurred as a result, meaning that there was no net underpayment to the individual as well as some cases where the customer is deceased and the department has so far been unable to identify an estate to which to pay the arrears due. 

3. This average includes cases where the arrears amount owed is £0 due to offset of overpaid benefit. 

4. Totals may not add due to rounding. 

3. Statement of compliance with the code of practice of statistics 

The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) is built around 3 main concepts: 

• trustworthiness – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics 
• quality – is about using data and methods that produce statistics 
• value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs 

Trustworthiness 

Progress on the State Pension Legal Entitlement and Administrative Practices (LEAP) exercise is based on DWP management information supplied through: 

1. individually reviewed cases to find customers that have been underpaid and the amount they are owed, and to learn why they have been underpaid
2. the department’s computer system that holds alive and deceased State Pension cases 

Quality 

DWP analysts have engaged with operational staff to ensure the quality of the data is fit-for-purpose and have analysed data to help understand the customers most likely to have been underpaid, whilst offering a robust sense check of values against other outputs for comparable periods. 

Correction rates and arrears amounts are likely to change as the exercise progresses, due to varying characteristics of the individuals affected and recruitment of additional staff to correct cases. 

Value 

This release provides a progress update on the State Pension LEAP exercise, together with context for those figures. 

To support financial planning and management of departmental business, figures have been seen in advance by ministers and officials. This is in line with the Code, where pre-release access does not apply for releases based on routine management information – as covered in para 3.6 of the National Statistician’s guidance, February 2018. 

Statistics enquiries 

For statistics enquiries only, email: statepensioncorrectionexercise.managementoffice@dwp.gov.uk.