DWP state pension 'failures' leaves ex-soldier £3,000 a year worse off
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A warning has been issued after a Department for Work and Pension (DWP) state pension failure 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.
Adrian and his wife Sheila, 67, moved to Brittany in 1994. In addition to his state pension, the ex-soldeier - who was born in Bedford - 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.
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, Adrian 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.
Adrian 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've had eight more year 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.
