‘At the forefront of highlighting pension injustice’: This is Money’s Tanya Jefferies wins Outstanding Achievement award

The campaign journalism and in-depth investigations of This is Money’s Investment and Pensions editor, Tanya Jefferies, have been recognized with a special award.

Tanya won Headline Money’s Outstanding Achievement award for being ‘at the forefront of highlighting pension injustice’.

Over the past few years, Tanya has worked tirelessly alongside our retirement columnist Sir Steve Webb to fix the myriad of problems in the state pension system, and in doing so made a world of difference to retirees’ current and future retirement income.

The most high-profile case involved the uncovering of the low-paid women’s state pension scandal, leading to Tanya, Steve and This is Money being mentioned in the National Audit Office report and recovering an estimated £1.2bn for those affected.

She has also revealed, along with Steve, how older mothers were being swindled out of an extra billion pounds, while younger mothers were missing out on child benefit state pension credits.

Tanya helped secure a victory for up to 10 million people at Universal Credit who didn’t get the NI credits they deserved, and exposed how the state’s pension supplement system was in disarray, which the government ultimately tacitly acknowledged by having to extend a special term to buy them twice.

The judges said: “This highly respected Investment and Pensions publisher has persistently campaigned on behalf of those affected by failures in the pension system, raising awareness about issues such as state pension underpayments, DWP miscalculations, government failures to notify women of increases in the state pension age, and the poorly understood link between the child benefit and the state pension.”

“Demonstrating the power of investigative journalism and the importance of listening to readers’ concerns, along with Sir Steve Webb, their work exposing underpayments of state pensions prompted an investigation by the National Audit Office, resulting in a government report crediting their role in exposing the scandal.”

Money’s Simon Lambert said: “Tanya’s award is more than deserved, but I know the real reward for her and Steve Webb, with whom she works closely, is the money they’ve recovered for countless retirees and the real difference it will make to their quality of life.”

Tanya received her award at the Headline Money event last week and was praised for her ‘continued advocacy and tenacity for those seeking pension justice’.

Money’s Lee Boyce said: ‘Tanya is doggedly dedicated to her job helping as many readers as she can every day.

“It involves a lot of legwork behind the scenes and back and forth with various government departments, which can often only be described as Kafkaesque.

“But her tenacity, resolve and never-give-up attitude make Tanya one of the best personal finance journalists in the country in our view. The number of readers she has helped over the past decade is staggering.

“We are delighted that this hard work has been recognized with the highest award given at what is described as the Oscars for personal finance journalists.

“Bravo Tanya.”