The Parliamentary Ombudsman has ordered the government to compensate women who did not adequately inform them of the extension of their legal retirement age.
He called on Parliament to intervene and quickly put a compensation system in place, without the Department for Work and Pensions refusing to do so.
The Ombudsman recommended that those affected should receive between £1,000 and £2,950 in compensation, which he said would cost between £3.5 billion and £10.5 billion if paid to all women born in the 1950s.
Compensation set: The parliamentary ombudsman ordered the government to pay compensation to the Waspi women after failing to adequately inform them that the state pension age had been delayed.
Ombudsman chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath said: “The UK National Ombudsman has found failings by the DWP in this matter and ruled that the women affected should be compensated.
“DWP has made it clear it will refuse to comply. This is unacceptable. The Department must do the right thing and it must be held accountable for its failure.
“Complainants should not have to wait to see whether the DWP will take action to address its failings.
“Given our serious concerns that it will fail to act on our findings and given the need to remedy the situation as quickly as possible for the women affected, we have proactively asked Parliament to intervene and hold the ministry accountable.
“Parliament must now act quickly and ensure that a compensation system is put in place. We believe this will offer women the quickest way to remedy this.
Many women born in the 1950s faced hardship by waiting longer than expected to collect the state pension.
They argued there were major gaps in the way the state’s retirement age increase was communicated. Two increases were also accelerated and scheduled to come in quick succession in 2018 and 2020, leaving them little time to fill the hole in their retirement finances.
The Women Against State Pension Inequality – or Waspi – campaign today said the DWP’s approach was “incredible” and called for the issue to become a major election issue for the 3.6 million women affected.
It is pressuring all parties to include promises of “fair and prompt compensation” in their programs.
Waspi Group chair Angela Madden said: “The DWP’s refusal to accept the clear conclusions of this five-year investigation is nothing short of incredible. One of the affected women dies every 13 minutes and we simply cannot afford to wait any longer.
“Now that the PHSO findings have finally been published, all parties have a duty to the women affected to make a clear and unambiguous commitment to compensation.
“The Ombudsman has put the ball firmly in Parliament’s court, and it is now up to MPs to deliver justice to all 3.6 million women affected.”
Liberal Democrats pensions spokeswoman, MP Wendy Chamberlain, said: “After years of waiting, the Ombudsman has finally recommended compensation for WASPI women.
“These courageous women, who tirelessly fought for justice after being left behind, deserve our admiration for their perseverance.
“The Liberal Democrats have long supported WASPI in their campaign and it is now up to this Conservative government to present a plan to ensure these women get the compensation they are due.”
Former Pensions Minister Ros Altmann said: “The long-awaited report from the Parliamentary Ombudsman into the government’s handling of the increase in the state pension age for women is finally published. It’s overwhelming.
“It highlights clear failings and says millions of women need to apologize, to acknowledge the impact on their retirement plans, but does not recommend the level of compensation that many WASPI women hoped for.
“Of course an apology would be a start, but it wouldn’t pay the bills of those who were plunged into poverty because they didn’t know their pension age had been raised. Nor will it address the distress, anger and anxiety of women born in the 1950s.”
Lady Altmann added: “When I was minister, it seemed I was the only person in the DWP who believed that the issue of women’s pension ages should be taken seriously and that the government’s failures had caused serious difficulties.
“Having campaigned against the 2011 coalition government’s proposals to further raise women’s pension ages beyond the 1995 measures, I knew there were problems.
“Unfortunately, Parliament moved forward despite my calls and those of many others. Accelerating increases after 2015 was unfair and the WASPI campaign began at that time. Women have been campaigning for compensation ever since.
“I was hoping to devise a plan that would allow those most affected to claim money to help them, but this was rejected by both my fellow ministers and the women themselves.”
In summer 2021, the Parliamentary Ombudsman highlighted the government’s failure to write directly to affected women earlier and follow up on internal research to improve and target its communications.
Women Against State Pension Inequality – or Waspi – said the findings reinforced what she “knew all along” about the Department for Work and Pensions’ failure to adequately inform 3.8 million women born in the 1950s that their state retirement age would increase.
The Waspi campaign says it supports equalizing the retirement age for women and men, but does not support the “unfair” way the changes have been implemented.
At the request of the Waspi group, thousands of women filed official complaints for not having been informed of the state’s increase in the retirement age.
The Ombudsman suspended a decision during a judicial review, brought by the separate group BackTo60, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
When he took up the issue, the Ombudsman said women should have been given at least 28 months more individual notice of a change in the statutory retirement age, an opportunity to adjust their retirement plans which had been “lost”.
Since 2021, it has examined the “impact of injustice” and possible recommendations for redress.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We will review the Ombudsman’s report and respond in due course, having cooperated fully throughout this investigation.
“The Government has always been committed to supporting all retirees in a sustainable way that provides them with a dignified retirement while being fair to them and taxpayers.
“The state pension is the basis of retirement income and will remain so as we deliver a further 8.5 per cent increase in April, which will increase the state pension of 12 million retirees by £900.
Why is there controversy around raising the retirement age for women?
Plans to equalize the retirement age between men and women were first presented in 1995.
The Conservative government at the time announced its intention to gradually raise the retirement age for women to 65 between 2010 and 2020.
This was followed in 2007 by a Labor announcement that both men and women would see their pension age increase to 66 between 2024 and 2026.
But in 2011, Chancellor George Osborne brought forward the timetable for the two changes to 2018 and 2020 respectively, hitting women particularly hard because their increases happened both earlier than expected and in rapid succession.
Initially, the overhaul included an additional waiting cap of up to two years to obtain a state pension, but protests led to the cap being reduced to 18 months.
Some 2.6 million women were given five years’ notice before delaying their retirement age.
The Women Against State Pension Inequality or Waspi campaign fought for action to soften the financial blow and urged women to complain first to the DWP itself, then to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the service health.
A separate group, BackTo60, took legal action, but it was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in September 2020.
Waspi said the courts could not rule on maladministration because that was the role of the ombudsman.
The end of the trial allowed the Parliamentary Ombudsman to examine the women’s complaints, and his 2021 report accused the government of “maladministration” due to delays in informing women about the changes.
In recent years, he has reflected on the “impact of injustice” and made recommendations to address what happened.
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