The final report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on the way pension entitlement changes affecting women passed into law between 1995 and 2011 is a milestone in a long-running campaign – but not the end. Five years ago the women lost a discrimination case they had brought against the government. Their complaint to the ombudsman was the result, and the verdict vindicates their claim to have been unjustly treated.
The ombudsman made an initial set of findings in the women’s favour, and against the Department for Work and Pensions, in 2021. Now, these are added to by further instances of maladministration. While the failures uncovered are serious in their own right, the expectation set out in the report that the DWP will refuse to act on them is also very concerning.
The nub of the issue is that after the state pension age for women was raised to match that of men, in 1995, the government did not explain it properly. Given that the retirement age for women had been 60 since the 1940s, it should have been obvious that a major public information campaign was needed. But the leaflets produced at the time didn’t reach many of those they were intended for. The consequence was many 1950s-born women carried on their lives under the misapprehension that they would be able to afford to retire aged 60. By the time they realised the mistake, some found that it was too late to avoid severe financial consequences – and that they were tens of thousands of pounds worse off than they expected to be.
Mistakes were made at every stage of this lengthy process. But the ombudsman’s strongest criticism relates to the years after 2004. Then, research revealed the extent of women’s ignorance of the changes. But despite this, information about how to qualify for the earnings-related additional state pension (since abolished) was not clearly communicated. And while letters were sent when the pension age was raised again in 2011, from 65 to 66, a gap remained between “awareness and understanding”. In other words, while women may have known in the abstract that the pension age was being raised, they were not told how this would affect them.
Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn, promised to spend £58bn compensating the Waspi women (named after their campaign group, Women Against State Pension Inequality). The ombudsman’s more modest proposal is costed at between £3.5bn and £10.5bn. The report acknowledges that the entire cohort of around 3.8 million women wasn’t harmed. It recommends an apology, and seeks to balance the best practice of case-by-case consideration with considerations of time and cost-effectiveness.
The government committed on Thursday to consider these recommendations. Given the DWP’s uncooperative stance during the investigation, it should have gone further. It is patently unacceptable for the long process of which this careful report is the outcome to be brushed off. Given the impact of these mistakes on thousands of lives, and also taking into account the 35% gap dividing the private pension entitlements of men and women (a gap many times larger than the 7.7% pay gap), findings of maladministration in relation to women’s state pensions must be taken seriously. Through its obdurate reaction, the DWP appears determined to add insult to injury – and prove the ombudsman’s point about its habitual unresponsiveness.
