I’m £3,000 worse off a year after DWP failed to tell me about huge change to my state pension for eight years
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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.
![[Miniature figures of men and women sitting on stacks of British coins.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/file-photo-dated-12-09-919110082_bcf75a.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
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.
