WASPI Latest

I too was like. "Teacheranne.. I have a NHS pension we were kept up to speed on changes.
I did the same, paid extra into my pension and knew I was Contracted out. Tbh it isn't that different from my DH pension.
I appreciate not everyone had company /Private Pension and these ladies shouldn't have to struggle.

You are right very little press coverage on this, however I am sure I got a letter? I do remember my Unions and pay office team re - issuing the information on Update letters.

Visgir1

I too was like. "Teacheranne.. I have a NHS pension we were kept up to speed on changes.
I did the same, paid extra into my pension and knew I was Contracted out. Tbh it isn't that different from my DH pension.
I appreciate not everyone had company /Private Pension and these ladies shouldn't have to struggle.

You are right very little press coverage on this, however I am sure I got a letter? I do remember my Unions and pay office team re - issuing the information on Update letters.

Me too - but I still think the accelerated timescale for the raising of the pension age for women was unfair. We were the lucky ones, because we were kept informed, and more importantly, we also get another pension, we aren’t totally reliant on the state pension. For those who are, bringing the implementation dates forward reduced their ability to plan. That’s actually a bigger issue in my mind than the notification process failures.

Liz Truss has already said she won't be looking at this, she said I know this is not what you want to hear but she'd rather be honest with us..
This is her response to a Waspi woman:

Will Liz Truss compensate women who have been impacted by pension changes?
WASPI woman Patricia Morgan challenged Liz Truss about her plans to compensate women who are demanding compensation because of the impact state pension changes had on them. The frontrunner to be the next PM said she sympathised with the women but hinted that compensation wasn’t likely saying “it would be very difficult to go back”.

In short, we are not getting her support if she becomes the PM. No surprise there then. I have no private pension, I never had any letter, I found out about the changes when I was 58, worked from 15years old, no work place pension where I worked, not even able to get a mortgage back then, I am 67 next month and still dragging myself to work as I know I will struggle on the state pension.

I have no issue with the equalisation of the state pension age for men and women. Initially the transition was staggered, but it was the sudden acceleration that caused huge problems for 50s women. Some of the so-called information films / advertising about the situation were, in themselves, offensive e.g. ‘Working Dogs’??? They were also so obscure that the real issue was not made clear. For those who had unions / employers who clarified things for them, fine, but this didn’t apply to all affected women. Surely it was the responsibility of the DWP to inform all affected women individually. As others have said, the issue receives very little coverage in the MSM; the plight of ‘old women who should have known better’ simply isn’t sexy.

mumofthree

I agree that the inability to plan is the injustice (but of course that is tied to the lack of the communication).

If women had had the same opportunities as men from the start, the idea of 'equalising' pension ages would be fairer - but we didn't. Apart from the fact that many women were encouraged to stay at home when they had children, we did not (on the whole) have the same opportunities as boys. The older 50s cohort will have started work when unequal pay was allowed, and the younger ones (like me) will have seen boys with the same qualifications given jobs that led directly to management when girls went into 'dead end' roles. Yes, some women had the same opportunities as boys, or fought their way up in a man's world (there are always posts pointing this out, and of course I congratulate those women for their presence of mind and determination), but they were fairly thin on the ground.

In the work I retired from (university lecturer) I was paid the same as men on my grade, which seems fair, but the university had a 20% gender pay gap (still does, AFAIK), as do many other workplaces, because men climb the ladder faster, largely because of having no time off for children or spells of part-time working for family reasons. All of that feeds into pension provision, both in final salary schemes and in years worked (and contributions paid) in annuity-based pensions.

When I started work it was legal to deny part-time staff, and those on temporary contracts (in both cases predominantly women) access to occupational pension schemes, too. This meant that I didn't start paying into one until I was 37, which again, impacted on my pension.

People who say things like 'you wanted equality, now you've got it' are either missing the point or being spiteful, IMO. It was never equal, but at least the earlier retirement age went some way to compensating for that.

I am a 1950's born woman , who along with my many friends, relatives, work colleagues also born in the 1950's knew all about the changes to state pension age. It was in the media both newspapers and TV for years. I simply can't believe there were many women didn't know about it. It was originally changed from aged 60 (for those born in the 1950's onwards) in the Budget in the 1990's, nearly 30 years ago. It was then changed in 2011. It will presumably be changed again. As I understand it the maladministration has only been proved for a few months when updates were not given to a small number of women. The most that can be expected is probably an apology. WASPI like to circulate false news and not manage people's expectations. The chance of any pay out going to some of the most comfortably off people in society is a guaranteed vote lowser. No men, or people born 1960 onwards would be happy, so no government would ever consider paying out.

"vote loser"

If this injustice had been inflicted on almost 4 million men, I wonder how different the outcome would have been.

I was aware of the pension changes due to the 1995 act and planned accordingly. However I think it was very poor that this same cohort of women was included in the 2011 Act, so having to wait even longer with very short notice. George Osborne thought he was being very clever with the 2011 Act and boasted about how much it had saved the Government. If nothing else, good for Waspi, giving the Government a lot of hassle. I think the compensation will be very limited, if paid at all.

LizzieDrip

If this injustice had been inflicted on almost 4 million men, I wonder how different the outcome would have been.

Well quite.

Whether women knew or not, how were they supposed to plan for an extra six years of pension payments?

I know that I was not sent a letter, for instance. I did a FOI request and have been told that that is the case. I can't remember when or how I found out about the changes, but in the 1990s I was knee deep in babies, whilst working on short-term contracts. They were consecutive, and I was full time, but I was not allowed to join the pension scheme, although I paid NI contributions throughout. When I finally got a F/T contract I was paying childcare and pension contributions, so wouldn't have been able to afford extra ones to cover six missing years. I'm sure that many women were in the same boat.

A summary for notgran as it appears you haven’t fully grasped what this campaign is about. From the Waspi site.

‘So how have 1950s women been treated unfairly and unequally?

1950s women have been singled out for unfair and unequal treatment because of the way the increases to our state pension age have been brought in.

WASPI has undertaken extensive research including FOI requests and have discovered that:

Recommendations to give fair notice were ignored

• The Turner Commission recommended 15 years notice, and Saga recommended 10 years. Yet many women report receiving little or no notice.

We weren’t appropriately or personally notified of the first changes in 1995

Some of us have been “hit” for a SECOND time – when in 2011 further increases to our state pension age were brought in faster than the Coalition had promised – again with little or no notice to re-plan for our retirement.

Women of a similar age have to wait disproportionately longer for their pension – a ONE year difference in birthday can make an almost THREE year difference to state pension age.

• Letters were sent out to women born on or after 6 April 1951 – 5 April 1953 14 years after the 1995 Pensions Act

• A large percentage of these women only received a letter advising them of significant increases to their State Pension Age within 1 year (i.e. when they were 59) of their expected State Pension Age of 60. Very many others received only 2, 3, 4 and 5 years notice.

• Women were given as little as one year’s notice of up to a 6 year increase to their State Pension Age, compared to men who received 6 years’ notice of a one year rise to their State Pension Age.

• Many women report receiving NO letter EVER

• Others say letters were sent to the wrong address despite notifying the DWP of the address change’

Kindly do not patronise me Casdon. I have grasped what the WASPI campaign is about, I possibly have more of an idea of what it happening with all the diferent groups who call themselves, WASPI or WASPI 2018 or WASPI Campaign 2018 or Pension Reform Alliance etc etc. than you do. People do not have to be notified by personal letter when the law changes. I always wear my seat belt in my car because the law was changed. I found out by reading about it in newspapers and listening/watching the news. The same applies with the change of state pension age. No government dept. sent me a personal letter. However the simple fact is no Government will pay anything out to such a small number of voters. Women born in the 1950's are not seen as any sort of special case. Just because we were born in those years does not make us unique. There are people approaching their 60's of both sexes who have health issues and should, I believe, get extra assistance. That is another matter.

Thank you Lizzie for updating us. I knew but couldn’t afford to do anything about buying extra years until it was too late to buy them.

notgran

Kindly do not patronise me Casdon. I have grasped what the WASPI campaign is about, I possibly have more of an idea of what it happening with all the diferent groups who call themselves, WASPI or WASPI 2018 or WASPI Campaign 2018 or Pension Reform Alliance etc etc. than you do. People do not have to be notified by personal letter when the law changes. I always wear my seat belt in my car because the law was changed. I found out by reading about it in newspapers and listening/watching the news. The same applies with the change of state pension age. No government dept. sent me a personal letter. However the simple fact is no Government will pay anything out to such a small number of voters. Women born in the 1950's are not seen as any sort of special case. Just because we were born in those years does not make us unique. There are people approaching their 60's of both sexes who have health issues and should, I believe, get extra assistance. That is another matter.

If you claim you know all about it notgran you are clearly saying that you think not notifying women individually, and the acceleration of the timescale without giving women adequate notice was not bad practice.
Can you explain why you think that it was necessary to write individually to inform men whose pension was affected by one year six years beforehand, but not informing women when the proposed changes we re so much greater?
Also, why you think the ombudsman has found there was maladministration if as you suggest women could find out by reading newspapers or listening to/watching the news?

Watching with interest.

Have you read the ombudsman's report Casdon?

The maladministration was quite limited.

Before anybody starts hoping for thousands of pounds, this statement on the ombudsman's website makes sobering reading:

"Deciding what recommendations to make

When we find an injustice was suffered as result of maladministration, we make recommendations which might include compensation is paid.

To decide how much compensation to recommend we refer to our guidance about financial remedy (including our Severity of Injustice scale) and take account of relevant precedents.

The Severity of Injustice scale contains six different levels of injustice that a complaint could fall into. Each level includes a range of amounts of compensation we would usually recommend in those circumstances. For example, compensation for a Level 3 injustice would fall within the range of £500-£950."

www.ombudsman.org.uk/complaints-womens-state-pension-age

If - and it’s a big if - any compensation was forthcoming I fear it will be nowhere near the sum of money 60 years old women received as an annual pension in say, 2010.
The shortfall for me is in the region of £8,000 per year x 6 years.
I still chose to retire at 60 as I had worked since age 16 and did not feel I could keep up with technology in 2018.

growstuff

Have you read the ombudsman's report Casdon?

The maladministration was quite limited.

Before anybody starts hoping for thousands of pounds, this statement on the ombudsman's website makes sobering reading:

"Deciding what recommendations to make

When we find an injustice was suffered as result of maladministration, we make recommendations which might include compensation is paid.

To decide how much compensation to recommend we refer to our guidance about financial remedy (including our Severity of Injustice scale) and take account of relevant precedents.

The Severity of Injustice scale contains six different levels of injustice that a complaint could fall into. Each level includes a range of amounts of compensation we would usually recommend in those circumstances. For example, compensation for a Level 3 injustice would fall within the range of £500-£950."

www.ombudsman.org.uk/complaints-womens-state-pension-age

No, I’d only read a summary growstuff, but it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think realistically there was ever going to be huge payouts involved, but I do get annoyed when the claim is rubbished because there definitely are some women to whom this has made a significant difference because they genuinely weren’t aware, and those for whom the acceleration of retirement dates being later made a difference. It’s most likely to be those who were financially the worst off when they were in work, and who don’t have occupational pensions as well. There will be some people to whom a payout of even £500 would make an improvement to their lives.

I don’t think realistically there was ever going to be huge payouts involved, but I do get annoyed when the claim is rubbished because there definitely are some women to whom this has made a significant difference because they genuinely weren’t aware, and those for whom the acceleration of retirement dates being later made a difference. It’s most likely to be those who were financially the worst off when they were in work, and who don’t have occupational pensions as well.

Agreed Casdon. Once again, the injustice of inequality rears its ugly head.

Kenneth Clarke put this into 1993 Budget. It received 3 lines in The Times, with the wrong preposition which implied it would start in 2020. The media adverts were in women's magazines and newspapers, talking dogs and monopoly boards?

I was 41, single mum, with children in Y1 and Y7, and a stressful full-time job 8am-5pm. I'd be up at 6am, and worked at home 8pm-11pm. I never bought a women's magazine or a paper. I never received a letter, even though I paid PAYE for 42 years. I knew nothing about 'contracting out'.
Yes I knew about SPA because an unaffected co-worker told me in passing, but I had no spare cash to cover the £17k I'm out of pocket.
The patronising ones are those who don't accept that others have suffered, both during their working lives (not allowed to join firm's pension scheme, moved area due to husband's job, not sent on training for promotion, not able to go on training due to family commitments etc). Some have worked full-time since aged 15 and are still working now.

It is disingenuous to say that it started in 2018, as in reality it started as soon as it was announced and all working women (as opposed to the already retired) had time added to their working lives. It was 2018 when the changes were fully implemented but they took affect a very long time before then, as to avoid losing out, women would have had to know, understand and be able to afford to take action right from the start. Great for those who were given advice from unions or IFAs at the beginning, but it is very unfair to blame those who were not in that situation.

Watching with interest.
I was among those for whom the shortness of notice made it impossible to make realistic extra provision. Also, I didn’t have instant access to information back then, the way I do now.

That's a good point, Molly. I was wondering about how I, along with so many others didn't catch onto the news, back then, but if you missed the news or didn't have time to read the papers, that was it, really. As I said upthread, in 1995 I had a toddler and a baby, so wouldn't have been as 'switched on' as I would be now. It's easy to forget how different times were before the Internet and even 25/7 news coverage.