WASPIs' Ten Thousand payment

The ombudsman found last year that there was definitely a problem with the government not informing all women that would be affected by the change in SPA. It was in their report. Unfortunately that finding was not reflected in the second part of the report, which considers whether the lack of information caused harm and requires compensation. This part of the report was legally challenged and found to be flawed. The ombudsman was required to rewrite the affected parts and recommend the degree of compensation . We won’t know what that rewrite will contain until it’s published. It is overdue.
This is the WASPI official website www.waspi.co.uk/

I think the quick answer is that by the magical formula they came up with, we should have been told 28 months sooner to be fair and compensation if any will be on a compensation scale based on our ages varying from 12000 downwards. If it goes through at all.

I’m also a keeper of letters, including the one dated June 2016 saying my SPA would be in September 2017 at the age of 60.
No other letters, didn’t read it in the paper (and I read the full grauniad every day, often the i or independent as well plus the TES weekly and have for most of my adult life) so stupidly believed the letter.
41 years contributions but because I was contracted out I still needed to pay full years from aged 60 to 66 to get the full new state pension. Wasn’t told that either, until it was too late.

I was born in early 1952 and had to wait almost two years longer for my State Pension. I can assure you that I received no letter from the government regarding the State Pension and I saw nothing in magazines, on tv, newspapers etc. I was fortunate enough to be able to throw as much money as I could afford into my company pension before I retired, although of course this is now being taxed each month. The freezing of the tax thresholds has really impacted my income.

I was born in 1950 and received my pension a few months after my 65th birthday and also missed out on receiving the new, higher pension amount.
I don't live in Scotland but I was well aware of the changes to come. I have not kept any letters but it was all over the press at the time. Like Germanshepherdsmum I don't see how people could have been unaware.

I remember reading somewhere that for women born between 1950 and 1955 that there would be a graduated wait for their pension . The first proposal was that however many months and years after April 1950 that you were born then how how much longer you would have to wait for you pension to start eg I was born in May 1953 so this meant I would get my pension at 63 years and one month and my SIL was born in March 1954 so she would get her pension at 64 years and 11 months .
I knew this before I was 60 .
The government then for some reason stretched it out again ( maybe to change the final age to 66) and my retirement age went up to 63 years and 6 months so another 5 months for me to wait .
I don’t remember where I got this information, whether it was a newspaper or a letter but if I knew it then surely others did ?

I don't think anyone will be receiving £10,000!
At best, one might expect a grovelling letter of apology and a token cheque for £300.

I never received any letters, I worked for a government department and “retired” from there and my retirement letter confirmed that in addition to my work pension I would also be in receipt of the state pension! If a government department couldn’t get it right then I despair. Although £10,000 compensation would be nice, they actually robbed me of £47,000! And remember it’s money that I paid out of my salary!

Marydoll

paddyann54

No letters here ,I'm not stupid if I'd had letters they would be in the file.I have other documents going back decades but nothing from DWP

I am not stupid either. Is it a coincidence we both live in the West of Scotland, paddyann?
I too am a keeper of letters. I still have hospital letters from 1977, from when I first became ill.
I really must destroy them. 🤔

I was in West of Scotland too, at that time. £48K was the figure I forfeited. I did not receive a letter, and there was nothing on TV or the press that I read at that time. I heard it WAS advertised in "The Lady" - not many folks I know read that magazine!

I’ve just received my state pension at 66. Now HMRC is taking huge taxes from my occupational pension. I feel cheated all round.

I'm a WASPI and had hopes for some kind of compensation for want of a better word when Boris Johnson said he was going to ensure it happened before he became PM. Obviously nothing happened and I don't expect anything to happen - there's nothing but delaying tactics as in the Post Office scandal

Surely all men over 60 and had to work should also get it ?

Nice if it happens , but a kick in the teeth for those born early 1961.

Yes, it’s a case of heads you don’t win, tails you lose I think.

Yes, doing a manual job well into your 60s would be very taxing.

I suppose the thinking was thst life expectancy was increasing so pensions were being paid out for longer.
However, it has dropped recently.

In theory you’re right *Callistemon, after 10 years it pays to be on the new pension, provided you have all your years in and wouldn’t be better off by being entitled to part of your husbands pension if he dies before you do.
I wonder though what the toll on people’s health is of working six more years, particularly those in manual jobs. Ultimately it’s in the interests of the economy for us to all die as soon as we draw our pension, then it costs the state nothing.

Casdon

When making calculations, the other important issue to factor in is the number of years for which women will actually receive their pension. It takes 10 years after retirement for you to receive the same total pension payment if you retired at 66 compared with retiring at 60.

So those on the old pension scheme will be penalised even more if they're lucky to live longer!

The older they get, the more the gap in pensions will widen.

When making calculations, the other important issue to factor in is the number of years for which women will actually receive their pension. It takes 10 years after retirement for you to receive the same total pension payment if you retired at 66 compared with retiring at 60.

This thread has prompted me to make sure I could still get into Govt. Gateway. I couldn't, so have now sorted that. I was surprised to find I had 46 years of full national insurance contributions and only two not incomplete years! (Swanning round Europe as a student!)

It’s complicated. As TinSoldier explains above, entitlement to the old pension and to the new one is calculated completely differently.

Just before I reached state pension age at 66, in 2021, with a 44 year NI record, and technically falling into the “new pension” era, I received a very detailed DWP letter.

This showed exactly what I was due under the new system, with all the years I was “opted out” in a local government pension scheme not counted, and what I was due under the old system, when those “opted out” years counted and I’d earned extra pension by paying SERPS and second state pension payments. All the convoluted calculations were shown.

The difference between the two was less than £5 a week, and both figures were well (over £20 a week) below the new state pension. The letter explained that under transition arrangements I would receive the higher of the two figures.

Apparently 75% of people on the old pension receive the full amount or above, whereas only around 50% of those on the new pension get the full amount.

I’m not complaining about any of this. Just pointing out the fact that those of us reaching pension age under the new scheme are not automatically better off.

TinSoldier

Callistemon I can't really comment more on TaN's pension. It was just a general attempt to try to reconcile a Basic Pension + Additional State Pension against a New State Pension.

Re your second post:

Women born before 6 April 1950 needed 39 years but they received their state pension at 60.

Women born after 5 April 1950 but before 6 April 1953 need 30 years but had to wait longer to receive their pension depending on their date of birth - up to three more years to age 63 for the youngest.

Women born after 5 April 1953 need 35 years and received their pensions between age 63 and age 66 depending on their date of birth.

This table:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f02e640f0b62305b84929/spa-timetable.pdf

Women born before 6 April 1953 come under the basic (old) state pension rules.

Women born after 5 April 1953 come under the new state pension rules.

Women born after 5 April but before 6 April 1953 … had to wait longer to receive their pension

That doesn’t seem entirely correct - I was born in early 1951 and received my SP from my 60th birthday.

Further to that:

Up to 5 April 2016, pension contributions comprised a basic pension element and an Additional Pension element based on graduated contributions to 1975, SERPS from 1978 to 2002 and Second State Pension (SSP) to 2016.

From 6 April 2016 there is just one pension.

Women who retire in the future whose entire contribution record falls under the new system will not have contributed to an Additional State Pension

For now, we have women whose have made contributions under the old and new systems so we need transitional arrangements to calculate the pension entitlement as explained here:

www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs19_state_pension_fcs.pdf

All this is further complicated because some women will have been contracted out of SERPS and SSP.

A deduction is made from your State Pension if you were in a ‘contracted out’ personal or workplace pension scheme – for example, a member of a public-sector pension. This is due to paying lower rate NI contributions into a contracted-out pension instead, or some NI contributions were paid into your private pension instead of going towards additional State Pension. You could not contract out of the basic State Pension.

Contracting out finally ended on 5 April 2016. This means that all employees now pay the same rate of NI so that it all now goes to state pension and not into a private pension.

If you reached state pension age before 6 April 2016 and are widowed, far more generous rules are in place for inheriting a husband’s pension.

www.lcp.com/widows-pensions-are-you-being-paid-the-right-amount

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-11973997/Will-inherit-state-pension-husband-wife.html#lstlpornh26ketng3k7

Steve Webb, former Pensions Minister and now partner of law firm Lane, Clark and Peacock (the lcp in the link) was the architect of the new state pension system and presumably in charge of working out parity in the system to take into account age, altered state pension ages under the Pension Acts of 1995 and 2011 and various other actuarial factors.

www.lcp.com/our-experts/s/steve-webb

Callistemon I can't really comment more on TaN's pension. It was just a general attempt to try to reconcile a Basic Pension + Additional State Pension against a New State Pension.

Re your second post:

Women born before 6 April 1950 needed 39 years but they received their state pension at 60.

Women born after 5 April 1950 but before 6 April 1953 need 30 years but had to wait longer to receive their pension depending on their date of birth - up to three more years to age 63 for the youngest.

Women born after 5 April 1953 need 35 years and received their pensions between age 63 and age 66 depending on their date of birth.

This table:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f02e640f0b62305b84929/spa-timetable.pdf

Women born before 6 April 1953 come under the basic (old) state pension rules.

Women born after 5 April 1953 come under the new state pension rules.

^For people who reached their State Pension age before 6 April 2016, the State Pension was made up of 2 parts^:
• basic State Pension –a flat rate where you got the full amount if you had 30 years of National Insurance (NI) contributions

That is just untrue because women needed 39 years of contributions to receive a full old State Pension.

The basic pension for women born before 6 April 1953 will be £169.50 from 6 April 2024 so that sounds like TaN has £41.47 Additional State Pension from graduated contributions and SERPS/SPS that were not contracted out

I don't understand how, unless mine has been calculated wrongly.
It's impossible to find out.