Recommendation 31

We have previously concluded that the Department had been relying on a State Pension payment system that is not fit for purpose for decades, and recommended that it consider ways to upgrade its IT systems as a matter of urgency.66 The Department accepted 59 Q 101 60 Committee of Public Accounts, Underpayments of the State Pension, Thirty-Third Report of Session 2021–22, HC 654, 12 January 2022 61 DWP ARA 2021–22, pages 71, 225, 310 62 Qq 87–88 63 DWP ARA 2021–22, page 238 64 Committee of Public Accounts, Underpayments of the State Pension, Thirty-Third Report of Session 2021–22, HC 654, 12 January 2022 65 Q 89 66 Committee of Public Accounts, Underpayments of the State Pension, Thirty-Third Report of Session 2021–22, HC 654, 12 January 2022 The Department for Work and Pensions’ Accounts 2021–22 – Fraud and error in the benefits system 21 this and told us that it considered the recommendation to have been implemented, largely because it had introduced a new service—‘Get your State Pension’—to replace its legacy pension system.67 We asked the Department to update us on when it expected to have a State Pension management system that is fit for purpose. It maintained that it did have a pension system that was fit for purpose, the ‘Get Your State Pension’ system, which was built for the New State Pension cases from 2016 onward. However, it acknowledged that around 11.5 million records were still held on the legacy pension system set up in 1989. It told us that the migration of records to its new system was a “painstakingly difficult task” but that it expected to complete this process within the current Spending Review period.68 67 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes – Government responses to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty- Second to the Thirty-Fifth reports from Session 2021–22, CP 649, April 2022 68 Qq 103–104 22 The Department for Work and Pensions’ Accounts 2021–22 – Fraud and error in the benefits system