State pensioners will wake up to one-off £11,905 payment before the end of year

Thousands of state pensioners are set to be handed payments worth up to a staggering £11,000 within weeks. The Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) says thousands are set for cash payment up to £11,905 before the end of 2024.

The DWP is working to rectify its administrational errors. The latest figures reveal those affected are owed up to £11,905 each in back payments, as part of the State Pension Underpayments Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) exercise.

The DWP has identified 119,050 state pension underpayments worth £736million through its ongoing correction exercise. The DWP is repaying married women, widows, and those over 80 who reached state pension age before April 2016 affected by underpayments.

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In 2022, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) became aware of a number of State Pensions cases where it appeared that historic periods of Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) were missing, leading to inaccurate State Pension payments.

Investigations revealed that this issue applied to the National Insurance records, administered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), of some people both below and above State Pension age. DWP and HMRC set up a Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) corrections exercise to identify and invite potentially affected people to apply, correct their records, and make both arrears and ongoing revised State Pension payments.

All remaining widow cases to be completed by the end of 2024, according to the latest DWP update. Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The number of people who have been underpaid their state pension is shocking.

"And this isn't the final number either, because the DWP hasn't finished uncovering the full extent of underpayments yet." A DWP spokesperson said: "We want to ensure pensioners receive all the support to which they are entitled and have a tool to help them understand what state pension they can inherit.

"Delays can occur to a customer state pension award when not all the information we need is provided."