Hundreds of thousands Parents are missing On the top of retirement on the retirement of an average of £ 5,000 as the Department of Work and Pension (DWP), it admits that it is struggling to reunite the most with the money they are outstanding.
An estimated 194,000 has been affected by the issue, which has underpired his state pension-or due to the future-ridden issue-which he had no fault.
The error is related to the Home Responsibility Protection (HRP), which was available between 1978 and 2010 in the receipt of child gains or with the responsibilities of care.
The scheme reduced the number of qualified years required for a claimant for a basic state pension in retirement, which means paying the amount of years and national insurance spent in work. This was responsible for his home -related responsibilities that enabled him to reduce them in employment.
Protection through HRP meant to be automatically implemented to those who claimed child benefitMost of the contenders with mothers. Although, WPP It was observed in 2021 that it did not occur in hundreds of thousands of cases, on an average payment of £ 5,000.
But in its latest annual report, the department reduced the amount fixed for repayment from £ 1.2BN to only £ 29.8 million – deducting more than £ 1BN – assuming that it would not be able to improve the issue in the near future.
The report states: “It is naturally challenging to correct HRP.
“The number of people applying to fix its missing HRP has decreased. The adequate number of people has not responded to the government calls that they apply to connect the missing HRP and exercise has a very low activity level as a result of exercise.”
Autumn since 2023, HMRC More than 370,000 letters have been issued to those who were potentially affected. However, during 2024/25, only 12,379 was compensated on the basis of state pension, total £ 104 million. In the earlier year, it was just 419.
In response to a low tech-up, DWP has decided to convert the compensation scheme into an ongoing program by short-term repayment drive. This means that those who are affected, they should not face any time limit in claiming what they are outstanding, while the department saves considerable amount in short term.
Anyone is affected Online or post can apply for HRP. For those who require more information, HMRC’s National Insurance Helpline 0300 200 3500 can be reached.
Former Pension Minister Sir Steve Web said: “DWP’s latest report is a hammer shock for over 100,000 mothers, who are receiving low state pension due to errors on their national insurance records.
The LCP partner said, “The government’s letter-writing campaign has been a disappointing failure, and it was completely estimated that looking at its dependence on the process of a complex online claims,” LCP partner said. Wire,
“Although there will still be some ongoing publicity, the figures are an entry in the annual report that the government itself does not expect these efforts a lot of impact.”
A government spokesperson said: “We are firm to help those who have been left out of the pocket as a result of historical errors that are not their own mistake.
“That’s why we wrote more than 370,000 people who were potentially affected and launched an online tool to help people check whether they need to claim.
“We launched a comprehensive campaign to raise awareness about this issue and will continue regular communication to people to check their national insurance records.”