The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been pushed to compensate women impacted by the State Pension age rise.
Organisation Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) launched a campaign following a 2019 ruling that resulted in almost 4 million woman born in the 1950s having their State Pension age upped to 66 from 60.
As reported by the Liverpool ECHO, a Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has ruled that the DWP should have informed the women affected by the change at least 28 months before it did.
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The ombudsman watchdog is requesting additional evidence from the UK Government department before the end of March after which it will move on to the next stage.
The decision has been praised by WASPI, who demanded on Thursday that the DWP issue a one-off payment of between £11,666 and £20,000 to compensate those who have been impacted.
The PSHO uncovered maladministration by the DWP and is in the process of investigating whether it caused injustice to the complainants.
Changes to the State Pension age, which were legislated for in 1995, were not communicated through targeted letters to the affected women until 2008, leading the PHSO to find that "the opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans was lost."
The report added: "DWP failed to take adequate account of the need for targeted and individually tailored information. Despite having identified there was more it could do, it failed to provide the public with as full information as possible."
WASPI’s research reveals that throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, 1 in 10 women who died was impacted by these un-communicated changes and lost both their State Pension income and the opportunity to make alternative retirement plans.
Research undertaken by Statista shows that 220,190 women affected by the age changes will have died in the seven years since the start of the campaign.
The analysis, which was commissioned by WASPI, also found that over the seven years since WASPI started campaigning, the government will have saved £3.8bn on compensation likely to be awarded.
WASPI spokeswoman Angela Madden said: "The government’s strategy of delaying inevitable compensation payments is a cynical attempt to time women out of what they are due. The Chancellor is effectively banking on the grim reaper saving him more and more money each year, leaving women struggling to pay their bills in retirement and lacking in trust in Government.
"Since the ombudsman has already found that women born in the 1950s were mistreated, the right thing to do is to put in place a compensation package right away. Doing so would end the agony for millions of women who have been emotionally, physically and financially affected by mistakes made in government."
