Waspi crowdfunds to challenge PHSO’s ‘seriously mistaken’ findings
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Campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality has launched a Crowdjustice appeal to fund a judicial review against the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. The group believes there are “inconsistencies” in PHSO’s investigation into the government’s failure to communicate changes to women’s state pension age.
The group, campaigning for compensation for 1950s-born women whose state pension age was changed at relatively short notice, wants to raise £100,000 in the first instance to challenge the ombudsman’s findings and has raised nearly £31,000 since launch on Wednesday evening.
PHSO produced a first report in July 2021 into how women’s state pension age changes were communicated by the Department for Work and Pensions, finding maladministration.
In December last year, it completed the second part of its investigation, which looked at the impact that the injustice had.
It has not yet published a full report of its investigation, but its initial findings were that while there was maladministration in the DWP’s communication about both state pension age and national insurance qualifying years, as well as in its handling of complaints, this “did not lead to all the injustices claimed”.
Waspi has now said the ombudsman is “seriously mistaken” about the injustice 1950s-born women have suffered.
In its legal claim, the group will argue:
In his first report, the ombudsman concluded that clear letters about the changes to women’s State Pension age should have been sent to them from December 2006. If that had happened, most affected women would have known about the changes by 2009.
But the ombudsman appears to believe that most women would not have received those letters until much later than 2009 and by then it would have been too late for most of them to make different choices and protect themselves financially.
The ombudsman is therefore mistaken about the impact the DWP’s maladministration has had on WASPI women.
The ombudsman is also wrong about what women should have to do to prove that they suffered financial losses because of the DWP’s maladministration.
Waspi’s chair Angela Madden said the latest findings by PHSO have left campaigners feeling insulted and ignored.
“Now we have to fight back so we are urging people to donate whatever they can to our legal fund,” she said. "Every penny will take us a step closer to justice for 1950s-born women.”
A PHSO spokesperson said: “We are now considering what action DWP should take to put right the injustice we have found. We have shared provisional views with complainants, their MPs and DWP. Once we have considered further evidence we will publish a full report on our findings.”
The ombudsman has already said that the High Court deciding against full reinstatement of pensions from age 60 for affected women means it cannot recommend this.
“A 2019 High Court decision underlined that we are not able to recommend DWP reimburse ‘lost’ pensions. Nor can we recommend that anyone receive their state pension any earlier than the law allows or gets more state pension than they are entitled to. To do so would amount to us recommending DWP reverse or try to reverse primary legislation,” it notes on its website.
The PHSO awards compensation according to a ‘severity of injustice’ scale with six levels, where levels 2 and 3 obtain a few hundred pounds in compensation, level 4 up to £2,950, and level 5 up to £9,950. Level six, compensated at £10,000 or more, would need to involve “profound, devastating or irreversible impacts on the person affected” and “circumstances where a reduced quality of life has been endured for a considerable period”.
What do you expect PHSO will recommend in terms of compensation?
