Campaigners calling for changes to the state pension for women have pledged to get their legal battle against the government "back on track" after an internal dispute was resolved.
Four directors of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign who had resigned in February have been re-appointed, which paves the way for the campaign's legal battle to continue.
Angela Madden, Carole Archibald, Jane Cowley and Susan Beevers have been reinstated to the board of the movement aimed at helping women affected by an increase in the state pension age, after resigning earlier in the year due to "irreconcilable differences".
During the internal dispute, the movement lost the legal support of law firm Bindmans, which was working with Waspi in a legal campaign against the Department for Work & Pensions.
According to Companies House, Anne Keen, co-founder and director of the movement, and the remaining directors appointed after the internal dispute, have resigned.
Ms Beevers, re-instated as legal director of the campaign, told FTAdviser the change in the Waspi board was due to members action.
She said: "The members called on Anne Keen and her persons appointed to the Waspi board to hold an extraordinary general meeting.
"When this was refused, the members organised their own meeting inviting attendance and organising a ballot of all.
"The ballot was for a vote of no confidence in Anne Keen and her appointed board and also asked for those who had said they couldn’t work with Anne Keen to return to get the campaign back on track."
The Waspi movement claims that when the 1995 Conservative government's Pensions Act included plans to increase the women's state pension age to 65 – the same age as men's – the changes were implemented unfairly, with little or no personal notice.
The group also said changes were implemented faster than promised with the 2011 Pension Act and left women no time to make alternative plans, leading to devastating consequences.
Ms Beevers argued one of the goals of the re-appointed directors was to "get the legal work back on track".
The progress on these complaints, submitted to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE), has been slow, with many women previously reporting unnecessary delays because of errors with their correspondence and lost documents.
Between August 2016 and May 2018, DWP received and investigated 7,835 complaints from people affected by an increase to the women's state pension age.
FTAdviser reported in May that it has taken the ICE office an average of 39 weeks to allocate complaints concerning changes to state pension age to an investigation case manager.
Ms Beevers added: "It is very early stages, but we have several priorities. We want to re-establish the excellent relationships that we had with the trade unions previously, and to make sure we have their support in the same way that we had before. We also want to make sure that MPs know we are back, and that the campaign continues.
"We want to get other volunteers to step up and we will appoint a new board of directors, which will all be done with proper governance. We will also make sure that accurate accounts are filed on Companies House."
maria.espadinha@ft.com
