I was left £5,000 short after 6 months waiting for state pension – and the DWP offered just £50 to say sorry

Payments delayed: Merrick Ratcliffe spent six months struggling to claim his state pension

A 68-year-old left almost £5,000 short after being forced to wait almost six months to receive his state pension has been offered just £50 to say sorry.

It was only after This is Money stepped in that Merrick Ratcliffe got an apology and nearly £5,000 in arrears from the Department for Work and Pensions.

He also received a £50 special payment to acknowledge the delay to getting his pension started – a sum he dismissed as somewhere between ‘derisory’ and ‘woeful’ after his experiences.

The logistics and distribution administrator from Norfolk had postponed taking his state pension when he first reached state pension age more than two years ago.

Many people choose to delay taking their state pension in exchange for higher payments later in retirement.

Mr Ratcliffe had first claimed a state pension when he turned 66, but reversed his decision and repaid what he got then, which he explains is because he received ‘misinformation’ from the DWP at the time.

But he started a new application last October, and subsequently made numerous phone calls and two official complaints when his payments didn’t begin.

He says DWP staff promised a manager would call him but this didn’t happen, and wrongly told him a letter of entitlement had been produced but not posted, though he later learned this was still not ready.

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Mr Ratcliffe contacted This is Money and told us last month : ‘The application for the state pension is no further forward. Even after this period of time. I am informed that all required information is complete.’

He said he had repeatedly asked the DWP for help, but had received no answers and was at a loss to know the right questions to ask staff to get his pension payments under way.

And he added: ‘I need the money now. I am still working but I reduced my hours to 19 hours a week. That won’t pay my bills.’

After we intervened, Mr Ratcliffe received £4,978 but no paperwork with it, and he is waiting for his enhanced monthly payments to start this month.

‘The downside is that merely £50 is to be given by way of compensation for the total delay. Nothing more,’ he told us. 

‘HMRC have immediately begun to tax the lump sum in excess of the tax code at 20 per cent.’

A DWP spokesperson says: ‘We are sorry for the delay issuing Mr Ratcliffe’s state pension and we have now finalised his claim and issued arrears. Where errors do occur, we are committed to fixing them as soon as possible.’

Two other readers recently contacted us about long delays after they attempted to end state pension deferments last October, but they both managed to resolve this themselves with the DWP after five-month waits. 

If you are struggling to get state pension payments started, see the box on right for how to contact us.

Between autumn 2021 and late 2022, we covered many cases of readers getting into difficulty or even forced into hardship due to such delays – with expats, people trying to end deferments and those trying to buy top-ups experiencing the longest waits.

The DWP eventually appeared to resolve delays to starting pension payments, as complaints to our inbox about this dried up.

But problems buying top-ups worsened dramatically following a huge rush in purchases in spring 2023. 

We have helped many readers whose payments to boost their state pensions have gone missing for months, and in some cases years.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk