DWP Cock-up

[Nomoss]

I'm amazed that no-one in the UK Pension service noticed there had been a mass die-off of pensioners in Canada, or that the system (such as it is) didn't even flag up the anomaly.
I have long suspected that new UK gov't IT contracts are farmed out to someone's mate.

The Spanish service stopped our pensions in early 2017 when they didn't receive life certificates.
This was because they had stopped sending blank forms to complete and return each year, and just added a note to the annual statement to send certificates before March 31st.
The problem was resolved quickly once we realised and sent the forms; we now have a note on the calendar to print off and complete French certificates every year, which are what they used to send by post from Spain.
I think it is much more sensible to send a certificate every year rather than the random UK practice.

Our Spanish pensions are paid through HSBC, and a help Desk number is provided to contact their Customer Service.
This has been answered within a few seconds whenever I have called it, so it is easy to confirm what is going on in the event of any delay.
So far the occasional short delay has been due to minor problems, and it is nice to know quickly that one's money is on the way.