How to complain about an armed forces pension overpayment and claim compensation

The short answer

Work the routes in order, and start all of them early. First, verify the letter is genuine and ask for the calculation behind it in writing. Second, if the answer does not satisfy you, complain through the scheme's Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP). Third, take the complaint to the Pensions Ombudsman, which can investigate maladministration, make binding decisions and award compensation for distress. Alongside all three, you can serve a data subject access request, which forces the administrator to hand over your own file within a month and is often the fastest way to find out when the error was first spotted internally.

None of this stops the clock on the demand itself, so treat the repayment discussion as its own track: the schedule is negotiable, and the hardship route exists. Our overpayment page covers that side in full. This guide covers the complaint, disclosure and compensation rights.

What this is about

Since 2026 more than 1,000 veterans have been sent letters saying their armed forces pension was overpaid and must be repaid, after errors in the scheme's own calculations. The BBC reported in August 2026 that 335 of them, overpaid a total of £5.1 million through incorrect National Insurance calculations, make up the majority, with £304,000 repaid so far and 52 agreed repayment plans in place. Individual demands reported to the BBC range from £8,000 to £32,188, and the Forces Pension Society is aware of a small number running to six figures.

The letters are sent by Equiniti, which administers payments under a contract held by Sopra Steria since 2023. Sopra Steria says the errors originated more than a decade before it took over, and Equiniti says it is not responsible for the decision to recover the money. Whatever the contract chain, the errors were not yours, and the routes below exist precisely for that reason.

The news post tracks the reporting and the campaign, including the former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt's argument that there is a compelling case in many instances for the debts to be wiped.

Route one: verify the letter and get the calculation

Before anything else, confirm the letter is real. The Forces Pension Society advises calling Equiniti on 0345 121 2514 (option 2), which both verifies the correspondence and lets you discuss what the letter says.

Then ask for the workings in writing, by email to [email protected]. For the National Insurance Abatement letters the Society reports that the subject line should read "Complaint: NIA26" followed by your letter's reference number. Copy the correspondence to Veterans UK.

Ask for a detailed breakdown of the methodology and calculations: which element was wrong, which years are affected, what the correct figure should have been in each year, and how the total being claimed was reached. DBS Veterans UK has confirmed to the Forces Pension Society that this must be provided when asked for. A recovery demand is itself a calculation, produced by the same administrative process that produced the overpayment, so it deserves the same scrutiny.

Route two: the formal complaint (IDRP)

The Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure is the scheme's own complaints process, and it covers maladministration and incorrect information as well as the figures themselves. You are entitled to submit an IDRP at any stage, including from the outset; you do not have to wait for the calculation request to play out first.

Write to the Armed Forces Pension Schemes Manager, DBS, Mail Point 610, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street, Glasgow, G2 8EX, or email [email protected]. Include your full name, service number, National Insurance number, address and contact details, and attach the letter and any calculation you have been given. DBS aims to respond within 60 working days.

The Forces Pension Society's framing is worth borrowing in your own words: you have a right to a reasonable standard of administration over your pension. Years of miscalculation followed by a surprise demand is the opposite of that standard, and the complaint is where that gets said on the record. Writing to your MP alongside the IDRP is also a recognised route, based on your circumstances and ability to pay.

Route three: the Pensions Ombudsman and compensation

If the IDRP does not resolve it, the Pensions Ombudsman can investigate. Its determinations are binding, it is free to use, and it can award compensation for injustice caused by maladministration, including the distress of being pursued for a debt that arose from an administrator's own failures. That compensation power is the established route for distress in pension disputes, and it sits on top of any correction of the figures themselves.

Be realistic about amounts. Where the Ombudsman awards for distress alone, the sums are typically modest rather than life changing. The value of the route is that it is independent, binding, and creates a formal finding of maladministration, which is also the strongest thing you can hold in a negotiation over repayment.

Mind the clock. The Ombudsman normally needs a complaint within three years of the later of the event you are complaining about or the point you became aware of it (or reasonably should have). With errors that ran for years and letters that arrived long after the problem was identified internally, start the process promptly rather than assuming there is time to spare.

The internal procedure needs to have run first, and MoneyHelper (0800 011 3797) gives free guidance on the route in between. Full contact details are on our overpayment page.

Route four: force disclosure of your file

Under data protection law you have the right to know what personal data an organisation holds about you and to receive a copy of it. Your pension file is personal data: the contributions records, the calculations, and the internal emails and notes about your case. A data subject access request, or DSAR, is the mechanism that forces this out, and it has teeth the ordinary information request does not.

The administrator must respond within one calendar month of a valid request, free of charge. It can extend by two further months only where the request is genuinely complex, and it must tell you about the extension within the first month. A request can only be refused as manifestly unfounded or excessive, a test a first request from a veteran asking for their own pension file does not come close to meeting.

Send the request to DBS Veterans UK as the scheme administrator, and to Equiniti as well, since each must answer for the data it holds. If a request is ignored or refused without proper basis, the Information Commissioner's Office is the complaint route, and its involvement is free to you. The ICO cannot award compensation, but a regulator's enquiry is often what produces the response the request did not.

A DSAR is not a complaint and does not pause the recovery. Its value is evidential: the file can show when the error arose, when it was internally identified, and what was said about you at the time, which feeds the IDRP complaint, the Ombudsman claim and any defence based on having been reassured. Ask specifically for the documents listed in the template below.

A data subject access request you can send

The letter below is adapted from one sent to us by a reader and reworked for publication. Fill in the details, attach a copy of something that identifies you, and send it to DBS Veterans UK and to Equiniti. Keep a dated copy. It is a template for general information, not legal advice.

Subject: Data subject access request, Armed Forces Pension, [your service number]

Dear Sirs,

I am writing in connection with the overpayment of my armed forces pension and the demand for its repayment. I make this request under Article 15 of the UK GDPR and section 45 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Please provide a copy of all personal data you hold relating to my pension, including but not limited to:

• all contributions made, with their descriptions, sources and dates
• the dates of, and copies of, all calculations of my pension
• the dates of internal reports where any miscalculation was identified in relation to my data, and copies of those reports
• all internal emails and notes relating to my pension contributions and to my pension payments
• all internal emails and notes relating to the overpayment of my pension
• emails and notes identifying when the error or errors arose, and the specific error or errors in my calculations and their causes

I rely on this information and on you to calculate my pension correctly, and the demand for repayment has caused me substantial distress. Please provide the data in electronic form. My details for verifying this request are: full name, date of birth, postal address, service number, National Insurance number. I enclose proof of identity.

I look forward to your response within one calendar month, as the law requires. I reserve the right to take advice on your response and any action I may have.

Yours faithfully,

[Name, service number]

Compensation for distress: the honest position

Two different mechanisms get discussed under the heading of compensation, and they are not equally firm ground.

The firm ground is the Pensions Ombudsman. Maladministration causing injustice is exactly what its compensation power exists for, and distress counts as injustice. It is an established route with published determinations behind it, and the realistic expectation is a modest award rather than a large one, alongside the binding correction of whatever went wrong.

The arguable ground is data protection law. It compensates material and non material damage, and distress on its own qualifies, with no minimum threshold below which a claim fails. But a claim must show actual damage caused by an infringement of the rules, not just that an infringement happened. The argument would run that an administrator which calculated a pension wrongly for years was handling your data inaccurately, contrary to the accuracy principle. A controller can answer that the underlying records were accurate and the error was computational, and that argument has not been resolved for pension miscalculation in any published decision we could find. Treat it as untested.

For the same reason, ignore any suggestion that distress compensation could match the overpayment itself. No published source supports sizing an award that way. The proven use of the data protection route here is the disclosure lever: the subject access request that puts your file on the table, on a statutory deadline, while the complaint and the Ombudsman claim do the work.

If you queried your pension and were told it was correct

One case in the BBC's reporting deserves its own heading. An RAF veteran who received a higher payment than expected contacted Equiniti six years ago, was told the figure was correct because he had reached State Pension age, arranged his affairs on that basis, and has now been sent a £32,188 demand.

If that is close to your situation, keep the evidence. The Treasury's rules on recovering public money recognise defences including change of position, where you spent the money in good faith, and estoppel, where you were told something incorrect and relied on it. The rules themselves describe these as difficult to demonstrate, and the six year limit runs from discovery of the error rather than its start, so take proper advice rather than relying on a defence because you have read about it. But a dated reply from the administrator saying your pension was correct is exactly the kind of evidence those defences are built on, and a subject access request will surface any similar reassurance sitting in the file.

Where this ends up

No collective write off has been agreed, and the MOD's position is that it must recover public money. Individual outcomes are a different matter: a defence minister confirmed in November 2025 that a debt may be partially written off or an affordable repayment plan arranged, and the Forces Pension Society says it is aware of a small number of debts wiped after a formal complaint was raised. The campaign for a collective write off continues, with the issue raised in the House of Lords during the Armed Forces Bill debate in September 2026 and a petition open for signature.

The practical conclusion is that the people getting the best outcomes are the ones who engaged with the process rather than ignoring the letter: asking for the calculation, complaining where maladministration is clear, negotiating the schedule on hardship grounds, and putting the demand to the Ombudsman where the answer does not hold up. The routes above are free or nearly free, they are yours by right rather than by favour, and none of them requires you to accept the first figure you are sent.

For the repayment schedule, the hardship route and the defences in the Treasury's Managing Public Money rules, see how to challenge a recovery demand.