Angela Madden, Chair of the WASPI Campaign appeared on Dewb’s & Co on Tuesday 10th August. In her introduction, you will hear Michelle Dewsbury endorsing the campaign and stating she is “fully behind” WASPI women, whose number includes her own mother.
Michelle was showcasing the recently published PHSO report: Women’s State Pension age: our findings of the department of Work and Pensions’ communication of changes.
Even though the Benefits Agency charter, first documented in 1993 and updated in 1999 clearly state that the “Benefits Agency wants to provide a service focused on customers and that customers can expect to receive advice and information that is accurate, clear, full and helpful” (paragraph 57) the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) “failed to get it right”. It also “failed to provide the public with as full information as possible”. DWP then “failed to provide the public with as full information as possible, and then failed again to use feedback to improve service delivery and seek continuous improvement. These failures were judged by the PHSO to be maladministration.
Angela explained that for any compensation claims to succeed both “blame” and “injury” is needed. We now have blame, the DWP maladministered the communication of changes to women’s State Pension age. The PHSO will now proceed to Phase 2 and investigate whether their maladministration caused injustice. WASPI women know it did, we have suffered injustice for years. We have suffered financially, emotionally and from poor mental health all because we were not told our State Pension age had changed. Retirement plans carefully constructed over 40 years of work were shattered within 14 months of our expected retirement. No time to replan.
If (when) the PHSO finds injustice it will then go onto Phase 3 and make recommendations to put things right.
The WASPI Campaign will continue to seek legal advice during every stage of the PHSO investigation.
