ESA & works pension yearly increase

I have had a letter from DWP Dover CFCD ESA whoever they are accusing me of not telling them about my works pension increase.

I had my payment advice slip on 24/04/25 with the new amount payable after this years increase and I sent this to my local ESA office on 24/04/25 for them to amend my payments as I have done every year, so far I have not heard anything from the local office.

DWP Dover CFCD ESA have stated they have information from HMRC about my works pension increase on 09/05/25 and sent me the letter that day. They now want to know the reason I haven’t told them and are threatening a £50.00 civil penalty but I have told my local ESA office and I couldn’t tell them before I received the advice slip on 24/04/25 because I didn’t know what the new payments would be.

Do I need to do anything else and should I be worried about the civil penalty which is not right I think and will DWP Dover CFCD ESA involvement affect my state pension which is due in July this year and my claim for pension credit which I haven’t heard about yet.

Very worried about this.

I haven’t had a migration letter yet so I think I am safe now regarding UC

Thank you for any advice.

Hi cbrad

I had this two years ago. It was a letter from FEPS (Fraud & Error Prevention Services) they've probably changed their name to something else.

My occupational pension increases on 15th April and then rather strangely again on 15th May of each year.

Up until 2023 I have always received a letter with a form attached to complete and return to DWP regarding my annual increase of occuptional pension but it seems they have stopped doing this.

I received my migration letter from ESA to UC (deadline 11th July) and had a bit of a dilemma about whether to inform them before or after I submitted my UC claim as I was concerned that it may be classed as a Change of Circumstances (althought it never previously has) and I would lose my transitional protection. I've literally just written a letter to inform them of my increase and will post tomorrow recorded delivery.

I was really P****d off when I received that letter implying that I was trying to defraud them in some way. How was I supposed to know they had stopped sending out the letters asking me to complete and return the form. I actually spoke to someone about this and explained all of the above, I was rudely and abruptly told that the onus is on me to inform them of any change of circumstances and was not charged a civil penalty.

They really are out to get us on all levels it seems. Anyway, I shall post the letter tomorrow and wait and see what happens.

I hope you don't have to pay a civil penalty as this seems really unfair given that you notified ESA. I'm sure I will receive a similar letter to you in due course.

Best of luck, be interesting to hear how you get on.

Regards
soulgal