"Pence" is an amount of money. A "penny" can mean the coin whose value is one pence, or it can be another way of saying "pence."
In the old days--before the UK decimalized the currency--there was a coin called a "tuppence" whose value was 2 pence. If I said "I need two pence," you could give me either two pennies or one tuppence. But if I said "I need two pennies," a tuppence would not do.