CENTRELINK has admitted incorrectly telling 84,000 single parents to cut up their pensioner concession cards.

The federal government agency is now telling them they can still use their old cards to receive a range of concessions on utility bills, transport, car registration and medicine.

Human Services Minister Kim Carr said he had spoken to his departmental secretary about correcting the misinformation.

"I have asked the department to contact all the people who are affected to explain again that the concessions will continue," he told ABC radio this morning.

The government already was under pressure over its decision to move tens of thousands of single parents from the Parenting Payment to the lower Newstart Allowance, once their youngest child turned eight.

Senator Carr defended his department's agencies saying they dealt with about seven million Australians a year.

"In any one day there are probably some 135,000 face-to-face contacts," he said, adding they also handled 56 million phone calls to the public each year.

"There are occasions when things go wrong. This is one of those occasions."

Originally published as Single parents 'shouldn't destroy cards'