The DWP has been queried about a key reason that the Government gave for not granting compensation for the WASPI women.
WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaigners were devastated when the Government announced shortly before the Christmas recess that there would be no compensation payouts for the 1950s-born generation of women.
They were affected when the state pension age increased from 60 to 65 and then 66. Many claim they did not know about the change, and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman ruled that there was ‘maladministration’ in the DWP’s efforts to inform the women of the change, recommending payouts up to £2,950.
Yet Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, told the Commons in December 2024 that there would be no compensation scheme.
The Government apologised that the DWP did not write to the women sooner, but stated that it “cannot accept that sending letters earlier would have had a significant impact”, after the Ombudsman found there was a 28 month delay in sending out letters to tell the women of the change.
Officials from the DWP appeared before the Work and Pensions Committee this week to discuss the WASPI decision. Committee member, John Milne, said: “The suggestion that the letters wouldn’t have worked anyway was a major part of the Secretary of State’s reasoning in not offering compensation.
“It’s a remarkable claim because letters as a form of communication were used and still are used by every area of Government all the time.”
He went on to ask if there was any special reason that the Government thought letters would have been less effective in this case.
In his answer, DWP permanent secretary, Sir Peter Schofield, pointed to research that indicated that in cases where a person receives an unexpected letter, only one in four people remembered receiving the letter.
He said the crucial question was: “If we had written those letters 28 months earlier, would it have made a significant enough difference to count as injustice, and to take you into the context of talking about remedy.”
He further explained: “And in that context, the Government’s view was that it did not, as the Secretary of State set out.”
Mr Schofield compared the WASPI case and the question of getting an unexpected letter, to HRMC’s efforts to contact people who may be missing state pension payments, as they are missing Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) from their National Insurance record.
HRP was previously used to cover gaps in your record while you were out of work providing care, with the protection often used historically by women caring for children.
HMRC has been writing to women thought to be affected, but Mr Schofield warned: “The rate of people coming forward has been very low compared to what we projected.
“The work we’ve done suggests that a lot of people, they get a message from HMRC and they don’t believe it’s from HMRC.”
Going forward, the senior DWP official said it’s important the department improves its communication efforts.
He said: “Absolutely we need to make sure our letters are more effective. But it’s not only that that is the only channel of communication.
“Increasingly, if you want to know about your state pension age, you shouldn’t be relying on letters, you should go on the check your state pension website, where you can identify in a personalised way, what is your own state pension age and where are you in terms of your own National Insurance records and where you need to be.
“That is the way forward, enabling online channels for people to self serve and to get the information they need.”
The DWP bosses also repeated the Government’s position that the vast majority of the women knew of the change. In response, committee chair Debbie Abrahams said in passing that “many women would disagree” that they knew of the change.
