State pension advice.

Ellieduval

Hi,I wonder if anyone can advise.My sister reached state pension age 9 weeks ago,she put in her state pension claim form and received a text stating they were dealing with her claim in March.So far my sister has received nothing else from the DWP.No letter or phone call and certainly no pension.She has a pension statement stating she has 44 years of contributions and is entitled to the full state pension by the way.She rang the pension line three weeks ago ,which was two weeks after her first 4 weekly payment should have been paid.The lady on the phone said she could see no reason why her claim should not be upheld it was a straightforward claim. She did say she could see that she that they had texted her but nothing else had been done about her claim.The lady sent an email to the relevant dept as an emergency and said my sister should hear from them within 48 hours,she didn't.She rang the following week same thing happened.This week she rang and was again told the same so far the claim has not moved forward despite no reason for it not having done so.The woman on the phone said that my sisters claim seems to have been completely ignored so far..The lady sent an email and flagged it as an emergency again however as of this morning no phone call or letter and nothing paid in the bank.Our problem is who does she contact to move forward.The last lady at the DWP was at a loss as to how to sort this out as she said there was no one she could speak to other than her and she was doing what she could.When my sister asked her so you are saying this could potentially just continue,she said actually yes but you will get what you are owed back dated.That is no comfort when you are coming up to 10 weeks with no money in the bank,Can anyone advise where we should go next.The information is very limited elsewhere.Thankyou  in advance.

TELLIT01

Get your sister to contact her MP.  Once they get involved wheels seem to turn much more quickly.

Robbie64

I recently read on a welfare rights website that there is a massive backlog in new state pension claims which is resulting in long waiting times for claims to be assessed. I'm sure it said that some people had been waiting up to 6 months for what should have been a simple, straightforward, assessment. As Tellit has posted, perhaps your sister getting her MP involved will speed up things.

p00hsticks

There have been a few people over on the Pension board reporting similar problems recently and the advice given generally agrees with TELLIT01 that she should escalate it via her MP.

Alice_Holt

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78531310/#Comment_78531310

NedS

The advice to escalate through the MP usually works really well where a situation has maybe fallen through the cracks and minds need to be focused to achieve an outcome, but I'm not sure what the outcome will be when the reason for the delay is that there's a general backlog of claims. Still, I suppose (s)he who shouts loudest gets paid first

Hopefully the folks at DWP are working overtime to get the backlog cleared and pensions into payment.

molerat

I'm sure the Daily Mail would love to go with the headline "Hundreds Of Pensioners Starving Due To DWP Failing To Pay Their State Pensions"

antonic

molerat said:

I'm sure the Daily Mail would love to go with the headline "Hundreds Of Pensioners Starving Due To DWP Failing To Pay Their State Pensions"

Or the Daily Fail would run with a headline "Pensioners go starving because workshy DWP staff are STILL working from home"