The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has now circulated a provisional draft of its second report, on the emotional and financial impact of the maladministration, to complainants – but has done so on condition of confidentiality.
The report follows the PHSO’s findings last year that “The opportunity that additional notice would have given them [WASPI women] to adjust their retirement plans was lost… Despite having identified there was more it could do, it failed to provide the public with as full information as possible.” The Ombudsman’s office additionally encouraged DWP to be “proactive” in finding a remedy for the women affected.
WASPI is now taking legal advice on the contents of the draft second report and how best to respond to the PHSO before they finalise it. Subject to that advice, WASPI will respond on behalf of the Campaign, and we state again the following points:
We strongly endorse the findings of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on State Pension Inequality for Women in their January 2022 submission to the PHSO that:
“the impact of DWP maladministration on 1950s-born women has been as devastating as it is widespread. The APPG believes that the case for category 6 injustice is overwhelming and clear. Women have had their emotional, physical, and mental circumstances totally obliterated by a lack of reasonable notice. These impacts must be addressed, if we are to reach any kind of conclusion regarding this injustice.”
- We are instead campaigning for all women affected by the proven maladministration at DWP to receive fair, fast, one-off compensation for the impact that this has had on their lives.
- When a determination of compensation for this maladminsitration is made by government, the most should be due to those who received least notice of the longest increase in their State Pension age.
In the fourteen months between the first report being published and now, approximately 35,000 of the affected women have sadly died. More than 220,000 have died since WASPI began its campaign in 2015. Another affected woman dies every 14 minutes.
It remains a political decision by government not to heed the PHSO’s advice to be ‘proactive’ in finding a remedy to the injustice. Thank you to everyone who has signed our open letter to the two Conservative leadership candidates on this subject. Please do sign if you haven’t already and ask family and friends to do so too.
