A BRITISH ex-pat has been left £3,000 worse off a year following a huge mistake by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), a ruling has found.
The DWP failed to tell Adrian Furnival, 82, about a change to his pension that would leave him significantly worse off in retirement.
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It took the department eight years to inform him they’d stopped a key payment, according to findings by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).
The failure meant Adrian, who moved to Brittany with his wife Sheila, 67, in 1994, wasn’t given the opportunity to plan his finances or make up the shortfall, as he wasn’t made aware that he would be worse off.
Adrian should have been notified that he was set to no longer receive Adult Dependent Increase payments (ADI) from 2020, leaving him £250 worse off a month.
Before they were axed, ADI payments were extra cash worth up to £70 a week that an individual on State Pension could claim if their spouse or partner had no or a very low income of their own.
Adrian should have been told about the change in 2010 when other people living in the UK had been.
But it wasn’t until eight years later in 2018 via an annual statement from the DWP that he was informed.
Adrian, who was born in Bedford and served in the army, 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.
“If they had told us at the same time as everyone else, we could have had eight more years to plan for the shortfall.”
The Ombudsman recommended that the DWP apologise and pay Adrian £675 for the failure to tell him about the change.
It is also now urging the government to improve its communications and has warned that other people could be in a similar situation to Adrian.
In 2019, one year before ADI ended, around 10,817 were still in receipt of ADI and could be affected.
The DWP has been asked to offer similar compensation to anyone else affected by a lack of communication about the change.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, of the PHSO, said: “Poor communication from government departments damages trust in public services.
“The 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.”
Have you been affected by a similar situation? Write to us at money-sm@news.co.uk
It comes after the DWP recently accepted findings by the PSHO that it had not communicated changes to the State Pension age for women born in the 1950s effectively and apologised.
However, it rejected recommendations to create a compensation scheme for women affected.
How to complain if you think you’ve been treated unfairly by the DWP
If you believe that the DWP has acted in a way that has caused you harm or has treated you unfairly, you may be able to make a complaint.
You could make a complaint if mistakes have been made with your case, there were unreasonable delays, you haven’t been kept informed or you feel you’ve been treated poorly.
To make a complaint, you may need your National Insurance number, your full name, address and contact details, which benefit you are complaining about and what happened.
You’ll also need to explain how the situation has affected you and how you would like the DWP to put it right.
It’s a good idea to provide any evidence to back up your complaint, such as conflicting communications, missed timeframes or evidence of a mistake.
If the DWP agrees it’s made a mistake or treated you poorly it will put it right and may offer you compensation.
If it disagrees and you aren’t happy with the outcome, you can escalate your complaint to a senior manager who will call you to discuss your complaint.
You should then receive a “final response”. If you still don’t agree, you can contact an independent case examiner. You must do so within six months of getting your final response.
What are state pension errors?
STEVE Webb, partner at LCP and former Pensions Minister, explains what state pension errors are and how they can occur:
The way state pensions are worked out is so complicated that many thousands of people have been paid the wrong amount for years without even realising it.
The amount of retirement pension you get usually depends on your National Insurance (NI) record.
One big source of errors has been cases where NI records have been incorrect, particularly for years spent at home with children.
This is a system known as ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’.
Alternatively, particularly for older pensioners, the amount you get can depend on the NI contributions made by your spouse.
Errors have arisen where the Government has failed to adjust the pensions of married women when their husbands retired or failed to increase pensions when someone was bereaved and lost a husband or wife.
Although the Government has spent years trying to fix these problems, there are still many thousands of people – many of them older women – on the wrong pension.
If you have always thought that your pension seems low, then it is worth contacting the Pensions Service to ask them to check, especially if you spent time at home raising children or if you were widowed and your pension didn’t change when your spouse died.
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