The Department for Work and Pensions has failed in its communications of changes to the women’s state pension age, according to an assessment from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
In its report out this week, the PHSO said the DWP had communicated adequately the planned female pension age rises between 1995, when the change was first legislated for, and 2004.
But it had failed to act promptly after analysis in 2004 found the government's information campaign was not reaching the “people who needed it”, and recommended a targeted approach.
Campaign groups BackTo60 and the Women Against State Pension Inequality have claimed over the years that when the 1995 Conservative government’s Pensions Act included plans to raise the women’s state pension age to 65 — the same as men’s — the changes were implemented unfairly, with little or no personal notice.
Here's is what the ombudsman said:
1 Information did not reach savers
Research carried out in 2003-04 showed government information about pension age changes was not reaching the people who needed it, and recommended it should be ‘appropriately targeted’.
But despite having identified further options, the DWP continued doing what it had already done.
The DWP decided to not include state pension age information in automatic pension forecasts “because of data protection concerns”.
But complainants argued the documents could have included a general message about the changes.
The PHSO stated: “Given that DWP had already issued APFs to a proportion of the women affected by the time it was considering the 2003/2004 research, it was already too late for some people.
"But we cannot see that, having considered that research, DWP did anything different to what it had already tried to target information at the women who needed it.”
2 Written messages were delayed
DWP first proposed writing to women individually to tell them about changes after a survey in 2006 found 50 per cent of women whose state pension age had increased still thought it was 60.
But this was not carried out until a year later in 2007, after further ‘depressing’ research results.
The plan in December 2007 was to begin writing directly to women in 2009 after DWP said it would have required significant planning and it needed to effectively manage spending public money.
The PHSO said the DWP had failed to act promptly on its 2006 proposal or to give due weight to how much time had already been lost for women who remained unaware of the changes in the 11 years since the 1995 Pensions Act.
The PHSO stated: “We consider that, if DWP had made a reasonable decision in August 2005 and then acted promptly, it would have written to affected women to tell them about changes to their State Pension age by, at the latest, December 2006.
“This is 28 months earlier than DWP actually wrote to them. It follows that these women should have had at least 28 months’ more individual notice of the changes than they got. The opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans was lost.”
3 Leaflets failed to alert women
About 70 per cent of the leaflets the PHSO reviewed mentioned that women’s state pension age was changing.
But these mentions were generalised messages that state pension age was ‘being equalised’ from April 6, 2010 and would increase ‘from 2010 to 2020’ or ‘by 2020’. They would not “necessarily have alerted women that they could be personally affected”, the PHSO concluded.
However, the ombudsman recognised that leaflets were not necessarily the best form to deliver personalised information.
4 Govt website had wrong information
According to the report, the government’s website incorrectly stated that the state pension age for women was 60 as late as 2016, causing added confusion.
DWP acknowledged that incorrect information was shown on an index page of the government gateway website, which had not been updated, but said the pension forecasting tool had been updated and correctly calculated the right age. The issue was sorted within 24 hours, it said.
5 SPA was not at forefront of campaigns
The PHSO said it had not seen any evidence that DWP had given any thought to further publicising state pension age changes or to make it a “prominent feature” of its pensions education campaigns.
DWP defended itself saying a lack of evidence did not mean that conversation never took place.
The PHSO accepted this, saying it had seen nothing to suggest that the steps DWP was taking to let people know about changes were insufficient or ineffective, and therefore the ombudsman said it could not say that more should have been done at this stage.
What happens now?
Amanda Amroliwala, chief executive at the PHSO, said: “After a detailed investigation, we have found that DWP failed to act quickly enough once it knew a significant proportion of women were not aware of changes to their state pension age.
“We will now consider the impact of these failings, and what action should be taken to address them.”
In response to the PHSO report, a DWP spokesperson said: “Both the High Court and Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the DWP, under successive governments dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants permission to appeal.
“In a move towards gender equality, it was decided more than 25 years ago to make the state pension age the same for men and women.”
Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, noted that while the ombudsman found the information provided between 1995 and 2004 was “accurate and of a reasonable standard, those affected have every right to be angry that evidence provided to the DWP in 2004 that improvements to communications could be made was not acted on swiftly”.
He added: “What we still don’t know is what, if any, compensation will be provided to women as a result of this finding. The ombudsman now plans to look at the impact this injustice had, which will undoubtedly lead to more pressure for a resolution.
“Given the parlous state of UK finances, calls in some quarters to compensate women affected in full – which could amount to six years of state pension payments - are likely to fall on deaf ears.”
amy.austin@ft.com, additional reporting from maria.espadinha@ft.com
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