WASPI

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jeyn3yxn9o

This could be why governments of whatever stripe find it hard to manage the economy.

DWP’s own commissioned surveys showed that by 2007, just three years before the change, 57% of women were not aware of their altered SP age.

That isn’t the "vast majority knew" even for the most arithmetically-challenged Minister. And at the risk of labouring the point, being aware of a general change isn't the same as knowing how something affects the individual. When the changes meant that some women waited a month and some six years for their pension, how could it?

The amount the Tories under Duncan Smith saved by accelerating the changes brought about by the Pensions Act 2011 is about the same amount of excess funds sitting in the National Insuarance Fund. That's our NIC being used to service government debt and earning over £4 billion a year. That money could easily be used to pay a blanket sum of compensation as a goodwill gesture. £500 would cost just £1.9 billion. £1,000 would cost £3.8 billion.

It wouldn’t satisfy everyone and wouldn't be entirely fair but it would be in approximate line with Level 3 justice. Anyone thinking they fall within Level 4 or higher (and it can’t be that many) would have to make a special case.

The positive PR for a Labour mea culpa - settling something they were largely responsible for and the Tories refused to do - would be huge and go a long way towards repairing the damage done by the WFP debacle.

Graphite - Yep...indeed I was born earlier than April 1953.

Guessing that I'm in a very specific agegroup then that didnt get sent our letters.

Did being aware make a difference, Visgirl? I don’t think it did for me. I couldn’t pay into an occupational pension for many years, as my contract was renewed annually, and private pensions were far less common back then.

IMO the difference between the retirement ages went some way to compensate for that (and the numerous other ways in which women were discriminated against).still, if they had changed their minds the government would be accused of ‘flip flopping’ or U turning, or another media cliche. It’s disappointing but not surprising.

Didn’t affect me, born in 64. Eligible for mine at 67. Not holding my breath, tbh. I very much doubt that state pensions will exist at all by the time our adult kids are of state pension age.

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.

I received my letter but it was only 18months before my due retirement date. If I am honest as I was intending to continue working I didn’t complain. However if I was planning to retire I would t have been very happy

I could not retire until I was 66. I worked the extra years so I could get my occ pen along with my state pension. I wanted a comfortable life in retiring. I found it difficult but manageable, the job was stressful.
I can't remember to be fair if I got a letter, but working the extra six years was not easy.

If you saw your pension date changed by less than three years then presumably you were born before 6 April 1953.

The table is here:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-timetable/state-pension-age-timetable

Only women born after 5 April 1953 were affected by the Pensions Act 2011.

The PHSO reported:

206. DWP’s initial complaint responses included that between April 2009 and March 2011 it had written to all women affected by the 1995 Pensions Act. It subsequently clarified that it only wrote to women born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1953, and that it wrote to those also affected by the 2011 Pensions Act changes between January 2012 and November 2013. DWP has accepted its initial response was not accurate.

The Pensions Act 2011 accelerated the increase in the State Pension age to 66.

www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/default/files/Women%E2%80%99s-State-Pension-age-our-findings-on-injustice-and-associated-issues.pdf

I really do urge people to read the PHSO reports before resorting to speculation.

The main point of the five year PHSO investigation was to look at what should have happened and what did happen.

Here is the 2021 report:

www.ombudsman.org.uk/publications/womens-state-pension-age-our-findings-department-work-and-pensions-communication/background-relating-changes-state-pension-age-women

Here is the 2024 report which includes at Annex C: Summary of the levels of injustice and ranges of compensation in our severity of injustice scale

www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/default/files/Women%E2%80%99s-State-Pension-age-our-findings-on-injustice-and-associated-issues.pdf

As I wrote upthread, in 2007, when the DWP finally accepted that they needed to write to women individually, there were no plans to tell women born after May 1955 about how the Pensions Act 1995 affected them. From the first PHSO report:

114. The proposed schedule for issuing letters included women who turned 60 between April 2010 and May 2015. We have seen no evidence of what – if anything – DWP proposed to do to tell women who turned 60 after May 2015 (whose State Pension age had increased to 65 under the 1995 Act) at this stage.

I lost 6 years. Born 1954. No letter.

I think it would be helpful if people could give a rough indication of how much pension time they lost with this revised state pension age - then we might be able to see if I'm correct in my suspicion the Government started by sending letters to those with the greatest loss - but gave up part way through that age range. Might shut things up all round of "You musta got a letter - I got one - so you must have" - which is what, I think, the Government were aiming for that comment to become widespread.

I lost nearly 3 years of mine of my State Pension - and I didnt get that letter.

Is there anyone who lost say 4 years or 5 years worth and they didnt get a letter on the one hand? Or people who lost a much smaller amount (eg just a few months) and they DID get a letter on the other hand?

I didn’t get a letter

knspol

This whole WASPI movement imo is very similar to women who opted for the cheaper married woman's NI cont , benefited from years of paying less into the system and then complained that they weren't entitled to the full state pension amount.

In what way are the groups similar?

One group paid in less all their married lives. The other (assuming you mean 50s born women) had their SPA increased without sufficient notice, and with no account taken of the discrimination they faced that (in many cases) affected their ability to pay into occupational pensions.

Two very different scenarios, IMO.

I definitely did not get a letter and as my job involved overseas travel I did not hear or read anything about it. First I knew was when I didn't get it!!!

This whole WASPI movement imo is very similar to women who opted for the cheaper married woman's NI cont , benefited from years of paying less into the system and then complained that they weren't entitled to the full state pension amount.

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.

The home responsibilities NI credit was not introduced until 1978, I stayed home to care for our two sons for 9 years and returned to work in 1975. I had also paid the married woman’s stamp from marriage until I had our first child because it was the thing to do then, by the time I found out I could have purchased missing years it was too late.

Didn't apply to me, but I can remember all the newspaper and media publicity when the changes were announced. Lot of discussion at work with younger colleagues.

From the PHSO 2021 report:

86. Between April 2009 and March 2011, DWP wrote to 1.2 million people affected by the 1995 Act (including women born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1953). Due to proposals to increase State Pension age to 66, direct mailing was paused in March 2011. It resumed after the Pensions Act 2011 became law. DWP wrote to men and women affected by the 2011 Act between January 2012 and November 2013.

89. Three complainants from the sample group say they did not receive letters, despite being told during the complaints process that they would have been sent a letter between October 2012 and November 2013. DWP does not have a record of who it wrote to, so we are not in a position to clarify which women were sent letters. We cannot discount the possibility, though, that some letters were lost in the post, some were undeliverable due to incomplete address data, or some were received and mislaid or forgotten. We also recognise that a direct mail exercise is unlikely to achieve a 100% success rate.

I may have been unclear. Sorry if so. I did get a reply to my FOI request and it told me there is nothing on record to say I had been informed of the changes to my SPA.

RosesandLilac

Doodledog

I couldn’t remember if I’d got a letter or not, so put in an FOI request (as advised by WASPI). I didn’t get one.

I did this too, no letter.

Lots of publicity about the website where you can get a quote www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pensions-basics/pension-calculator

If you do not get a reply to an FOI request you can write for a review and then complain to the Information Commissioner

I remember a letter and think it was in 2011. In my understanding the Ombudsman made the decision that it was not enough notice for the big delay in paying the pension. Not all about a letter

It was in all the post offices; I got a letter in my payslip as well as a government letter; on the news. I think that many women though it did not apply to them and it washed over.

Pensions were something often that women thought was something their husbands dealt with. Many women of this age also were advised to, and paid the "married woman's stamp" meaning that they relied on their husband's contributions for a pension.

There was also that they could leave work and get "dole", but these rules changed to family income assessed and for 6 months only.
What a lot of complainers often say is too sick to work, but do not seem to be applying for those support options. Or they are divorced/single, but are not seeking those benefits either.

The WASPI women that I DO sympathise with are those born between 1953 and 1955, because I saw very little publicity about the additional increase in wait, nor the change with the new rules that say that you cannot use your spouse's contributions.

I lost 6 years and didn't get a letter.

If we weren't worth the cost of a stamp, there could have been public service announcements between TV shows. 'Wear a hat, and keep your head', or 'Learn to swim, young man, learn to swim', anyone? There were PSAs for everything from children not playing on railway lines to staying in lane on motorways. Why not let people know that way? Could it be that it would be poor PR for any government in power at the time?

I knew about the changes - I'm not 100% sure how, but I have always been in a union, and suspect that they would have let members know. I did read financial pages, but I know not everyone did.

I also know, however, that many women had no idea - sometimes they found out after resigning from their jobs expecting to get a pension. These days it is easy to check things online, but that was not always the case, and it is very possible that those who came late to the Internet are more likely to be those who didn't read papers or watch news-based TV.

I always ask this, but never get an answer. Why do those who doubt women who tell them they were unaware think they are doing so? What will they stand to gain? If there is compensation it will go to everyone, whether they know or not - it would be impossible to evaluate individual cases.

kjmpde

V3Ra- I was born December 1957 and I got a letter

I agree that there were women who did not get a letter or enough notice but I do think some women have selective memories.'

I wonder if it depended where you worked, or who for?
I was self-employed (still am) and went from expecting my state pension at 60 to 65, then 66.
As I was also paying into a personal pension plan I decided to carry on paying into that as well, so that has worked in my favour!

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.

Well I lost the full 6 years, CariadAgain, and just got the one letter, the one telling me it was going up again from 64y 10m to 66y. I seem to remember some very unladylike words being uttered.