WASPI

Valid point Doodledog - and it is true - AVCs are very expensive and you need a long run-up time to manage to find the money to pay for them. If I'd not actually known what was coming for me personally (ie about 3 years worth of State Pension grabbed off me) then it would have been a matter for debate as to whether I could "make up any difference".

As a single person it was not easy to buy some more pension for myself and I landed up doing without all sorts of things, eg it's a large part of the reason why I can about count on only one hand just how many holidays I've had - at my age!!!!! That extra pension cost added on top of all the extra costs of being single that one has no choice whatsoever about (like having to pay rent or mortgage all on one's own) is a strain for sure.

In order to pay for 6 years of pension one would have to save a lot of money into AVCs, as they do not attract employer contributions as pensions do. It may well be lack of affordability, rather than a refusal to take responsibility for financial affairs that prevented women from taking them out. Much depends on time of life, and other circumstances. Someone with a well-paid husband and grown up (or no) children might have far more disposable income than a single parent who is forking out for childcare, for instance. Judge not, lest you be judged, and all that.

Visgir1

Just in.. "The Government has reconsidered the case after a new document came to light, but has again concluded no compensation should be paid."
Feel for those ladies who were not aware, I had a letter so I was aware.

Labour were very vocal in their condemnation of the Tories about this issue. Seems they are not prepared to honour their promise to the WASPI women after all. Shame on them.

Graphite

Comments about this from Pat McFadden in the HoC yesterday?

Don't bother writing a letter to a woman telling her that her State Pension will be paid from DD MM YYYY because either she won't read the letter or, if she does, she won't remember what it said.

The Gold Medal for Services to Misogyny.

Dear dear - like we're totally incapable of doing something like doing a reminder note in our diaries or similar?

In my case it got "burned on my brain" what age they were now going to graciously accept I was going to get my State Pension after all - and I'd kept the table I'd cut out from that newspaper article in my filing boxes - so I could quote off exactly "My birthdate of x means you're going to hand over that bit of my income to me at y". Right from Day 1 I didn't trust them not to come back for more (which they did to us as a whole) and I'd kept my proof of when mine was - just in case they tried to pull another stunt of saying it would be even later.

One thing that the various campaigns (WASPI is just one of them) has done is maybe prevent something like this from happening again.

Yes. Women, if they listen to this debate at all, may realise that is up to them to take more responsibility for their own financial affairs, and take action against what they perceive to be injustices themselves. Elsewhere on this thread it was claimed that women were always treated unfairly; certainly in the world of work historically that was true, until women began pointing out the injustices and fighting for rights like equal pay, promotion, maternity leave etc.
No need to join parties, burn bras, become a rampant feminist, but to take control of concerns directly applicable to women and argue for change. I worked in education for forty years, predominantly female, and the change in pension age was certainly known about and discussed; pension providers scenting business frequently asked to speak to staff about pension arrangements, and I did notice how few women took up the offer.
I remember one pension provider telling me to keep working as long as possible because the later years of one's career were when the best returns for pensions were made, sensible advice I followed until sixty-five. I did notice a number of women who took early retirement, to coincide with their husband's retirement, because 'they weren't going to carry on working while he lolled about at home all day.' Their words.

Obviously, the Ombudsman is a woman. Why else would their recommendations be ignored?

Comments about this from Pat McFadden in the HoC yesterday?

Don't bother writing a letter to a woman telling her that her State Pension will be paid from DD MM YYYY because either she won't read the letter or, if she does, she won't remember what it said.

The Gold Medal for Services to Misogyny.

eazybee

Lack of knowledge of the Law is no excuse.
I do not believe all these woman had no knowledge of pension changes when it was in all the newspapers, on television and radio, notice boards in workplaces, with access to advice about pension and retirement given regularly. Apparently none of them bothered to ascertain when they could/would retire and what their pension would be.
But so much easier to plead ignorance and tout for sympathy, or rather, compensation.

Excuse for what?

Maybe you can answer my question. Why do you think the women saying they didn't know are lying? 'Touting for sympathy' is a strange motive, particularly as so many people dislike women so much, and assume a financial motive for everything they do. Compensation, if it ever comes (which is unlikely) would go to everyone affected, not only to those who didn't know, as it would be impossible to determine who knew, who didn't, who was told and forgotten, who had been told but didn't believe it etc etc.

Why 'bother to ascertain' something that had been set in stone for decades? Throughout my childhood women retired at 60. Most of them hadn't worked for most of that time, but still got pensions as their credits were made up for being at home even when they had teenagers who were at school all day. If changes are made and people don't know about them, why would they investigate? It's no different from people being surprised when they have to pay hundreds of pounds for dental treatment, or can no longer get chiropody on the NHS. If the last time they went it was free, or if they are going for the first time and everyone they know had always got it free, why would they assume the same wouldn't continue to apply, unless they had been notified? Well, I say it's no different, but the difference is that the examples involve an unexpected bill, and the rise in SPA involves six long years of working or living on savings. The principle is the same though.

I knew about the changes, although it made no difference to my ability to do anything about it. But that doesn't mean that I assume women - thousands of them - are telling lies as a way of 'touting for sympathy'. I have more faith in other women than that.

One thing that the various campaigns (WASPI is just one of them) has done is maybe prevent something like this from happening again.

In my sixties I was working full time and regularly checked the Government website to see when I could retire as the rules were changed so frequently, in the hope that I could stop working, so I was fully up to speed on the age that I was allowed to stop. In the end, I decided to keep on working anyway for a couple of years. I think I did get a letter but can't be sure either way.

Having said that I was working in London and spending a fortune on commuting and it was only when I met my partner who is a couple of years older than me that I realised I could have got free fares from the age of 60! No chance of getting a refund of course. So I suppose I made a similar mistake in a way.

V3ra

^Parents who were at home looking after children under 12, and in receipt of Child Benefit can claim NI credit for those years^

butterandjam we got Home Responsibilities Protection, ie our national insurance credit, for being in receipt of family allowance/child benefit until the youngest child was 16 in those days.
My friend mistakenly thought it was until her youngest child left school at 18, and had to back pay two years contributions to preserve her full pension entitlement.

I believe it's 12 years now, though I don't know when it changed.

Yes, I know. My post is about current NI credits for women who won't be getting a pension at 60.

Graphite - gobsmacked that the Government thought it would take them so long! There's "British inefficiency" and then there's "British inefficiency!! ".

The other thought I have re the whole SPA raising is I wonder if any of us would have thought/planned any differently right at the outset if we'd known just how many years we'd get added onto our total. Would we have chosen any differently re what to do with our worklife in the event? That's more years in which our skill could get grabbed off us by changing work practices (if we had a skill) for a start-off. My own started getting outdated in my 30's as it was and part of my thinking was "Well I've got to 'hang on in there' till 60. I think I should be able to just about manage that". But having 3 more years deskilled in the event and it would have been longer for some others.

A valid point was made too that - to those women who didn't know until retirement was due (as far as they knew) = older bodies don't hold out so well under physical strain as younger ones do. Add in that it's - still to this day - women who are more likely to land up being unpaid carers one way or another and the older they get the older (and more likely) relatives/spouses are going to be by the time they do manage to get to retire.

Even a 3 year extension on a worklife could be someone's precious "years to do what they please - at last" destroyed by finding they've been turned into a carer. Maybe retirement at 60 would have meant = "Great - now I do what I please at last" and they got turned into a carer by a relative at 65 (for instance) and that would equal 5 years of freedom before the burden of unpaid work descended. But told they couldnt leave until 65 and then the chance would be that bit greater they'd be heading straight from one job (paid) to another one (unpaid) and that was their "Free time to do what they please at long last" just taken off them.

I had a letter in the late 90’s or early 2000’s saying my pension age would be 63, I was born in 1959. No other letter. We don’t have a newspaper but do watch the news , so I wasn’t expecting to retire at 60- but still an unpleasant shock to realise I would have to wait until I was 66.
I get very fed up of younger generations telling me that older women (in particular those born in the early 50’s) should somehow have known what to expect and provided themselves with a private pension. For many there simply was no access to any other form of pension, other than the state pension.

No letter for me.

I was born in 1958 , I don’t recall receiving a letter but as I worked in the NHS I was informed by them.
Just heard on the news , today’s decision by the government has been to reject Waspis claim again 😢

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202601/medium-5s86jk-screenshot-20260129-153407-samsung-internet.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202601/medium-cy2xsu-screenshot-20241206-075849-x.jpg

To hear the latest govt update (that govt whose members signed pieces of paper of support for WASPI)
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002qj8r
20 minutes into programme

To those posters who talk about all the publicity in 1990s, many women, who were affected, were working full-time with a couple of primary-age children. They weren't reading women's magazines or sitting down at 10pm to watch the News, they were sorting the washing or packing lunch boxes. They were exhausted. They may have known (eventually) that pension age was rising , but they needed a personal letter in 1995 with the date they were to retire. And that date should have been stuck to. That was the maladministration, not tinkered about with by Osborne

Well aren't you the lucky (smug) one!

I got notice and there was plenty of other communication about it. Frankly I’m fed up to the back teeth of the WASPIs.

Lack of knowledge of the Law is no excuse.
I do not believe all these woman had no knowledge of pension changes when it was in all the newspapers, on television and radio, notice boards in workplaces, with access to advice about pension and retirement given regularly. Apparently none of them bothered to ascertain when they could/would retire and what their pension would be.
But so much easier to plead ignorance and tout for sympathy, or rather, compensation.

Absolutely, Cariad. Whether or not women could make a difference to their pensions (vanishingly unlikely in most cases I would have thought) the crashing disappointment and irreversible changes to their working lives devastated countless women. Many had to take whatever work they could get, which was, of course, limited as they were 60 and deemed too old, and ended up doing things like cleaning and care work which can be very hard on an older body.

When people say 'oh, but you wanted equality and now complain when you've got it' I feel furious. We didn't have equality in the first place. As legislation changed to the point where men and women are not treated differently in law, there could have been very small incremental shifts towards making the SPA the same as for men - but in the form of an extra month at a time, not extra years - and there should have been an information campaign that was impossible to miss.

Cariad. If you read the PHSO report you will see what happened next. I have already referred to this upthread.

DWP did the survey to see whether, three years on from the 2004 survey. which showed only 43% of women knew their new SPA, anything had changed. It hadn't.

116. An internal DWP memo from April 2007 described the 2007 research findings as ‘depressing reading’. The memo reflects on the lack of progress since 2004 and the prospect of future complaints from women. It states:

‘You floated the idea of contacting the Ombudsman to get a feel for how she would react to claims from women saying they had never been told or were not aware that state pension age is increasing. In the light of the lack of upward movement from our 43% base figure from 3 years ago, we suggest putting this off until we can explain our strategy from here to get the message over. If we go now, we face being painted into a corner. Despite a really strong defensive brief, we still have 50% “ignorance levels” with three years to go. [The Ombudsman’s] first question will be what are you proposing to do about it?’

123. DWP has told us that direct mailing required planning and 2009 was the earliest possible start date. It explained it needed to engage with suppliers to get detailed costings on the preferred option, which involved working with private companies and ‘relatively new’ IT systems. It also says due diligence was needed because of the significant sums of public money involved. Even now, with modern IT, DWP says, a mailing would have a lead in time of months rather than weeks.

124. DWP used its CIS database to identify women to write to. It told us CIS went live in March 2005, was piloted for the first year, and enhancements were made between April 2005 and June 2008 to make it a more comprehensive source of customer data. It said that citizen data was not robust before the introduction of CIS, and this only gradually changed once CIS was introduced. It told us that, given CIS was continually improving, ‘it would have been strongly preferable not to conduct a mail-out at least prior to 2008’.

The first letters were sent in April 2009.

Graphite - I didnt know about that - ie that the Government had done that survey just 3 years before Impact Time.

Makes one wonder just why they did that survey - given that the result of it indicated the majority of affected people didn't know and yet I don't see any sign that the Government thought "Quick - we'll have to rectify that. Send out letters all round and/or have a big advert campaign to tell people".

Given that it was such a shock to the system to be put in that position even for those of us that knew - then I can only imagine what it felt like to those who didnt find out until just before they were due to retire (they thought). That must have been one heck of a shock to the system!! Imagine thinking "Right - I'm going to start in next year on all the stuff I've been waiting to have time for. Thank goodness I can retire now" only to find you couldnt. Some people must have only realised with weeks to go that this applied. There must have been people trying unsuccessfully to retract their notice I'm sure.

From memory - I think I had to give three months notice I was going to retire and the thought of handing that notice in only to find I couldnt after all would have turned my hair grey at that time. Especially given some of us (which I'm sure included me) would literally not have been allowed to retract our notice by the employer.

But hey - someone has to make the financial sacrifices necessary so that our magnificent government can throw freebies and hotel accommodation at asylum seekers, increasing numbers of which are appearing in court accused of serious sexual assault.

I didn’t get a letter but knew about it from You and Yours on radio 4. I told my job share partner who didn’t know about it. She was older than me so retired at 60.

Thanks for replying Visgirl

I wasn't able to do anything about it, as I wasn't in a position to pay more into a pension - I wasn't allowed to pay in at all. It's easy to forget how times change - these days you can go online and buy AVCs or various other pension products, but it wasn't the same in the past.

Luckily for me, my husband has a good pension and is happy to share it. I do have one of my own, but it is about a third of what it would have been had I been able to pay in when I started working in education. I was full-time for most of that, and only changed institutions once (moving from FE to HE with the same pension provider) but the fact that my contracts were renewable meant is wasn't possible until the EU rules forced the hand of the government of the day and allows all employees to contribute to workplace pensions.

Doodledog..... I was OK as I worked in the NHS so had a NHS final salary pension, which I took at 60 but I was asked to carried on working. I went onto the Hospital Bank luckily on the grade I retired on.
I only fully retired last April at 70. I know I was personally very lucky, which is why I feel for those ladies.