Recommendation 26

By the publication of its Annual Report & Accounts in July 2022 the Department estimated that 237,000 pensioners had been underpaid around £1.46 billion. This is an increase of 105,000 pensioners and £429 million compared with its best estimate as at 31 March 2021, but remains within the range of uncertainty the Department set out at the time.49 We asked the Department how it could now be confident that it had identified all those affected and that there would not be a further increase. It told us that the increase since our last report reflected that it had now performed scans of its computer systems that it was unable to during 2020–21, so was not an increase in the actual number of pensioners affected, but in the number of potential cases it had identified and can review. It further explained that it was now confident that the number of affected pensioners will remain stable, but that it needed to perform further sampling to accurately estimate the likely value of each underpayment.50 Following our evidence session, the Department wrote to the Committee to clarify that until the exercise is completed, it cannot say with complete certainty that the number of people underpaid, and therefore the cost, will not change. It told us that it aimed to provide updated numbers “as part of a future fiscal event”.51