WASPI ‘victory’

GingerTim

booneruk said:

amykirk1996 said:

Marcon said:

@amykirk1996 - you might want to delete your completely irrelevant and unfriendly post.

It is totally relevant - due to those at the time who said WASPI were not entitled to anything and were a laughing stock. They're not laughing now, are they?

They're still not entitled to anything. What's happened today is only a recommendation

And the government spokesman has already been very non-committal. 

westv

Malthusian said:

Silvertabby said:

Actually, the issue in hand - DWPs failure to send out letters in a timely manner in the early 2000s - happened under a Labour Government.

Indeed, that was the issue considered by the Ombudsman. I was referring to WASPI's campaign, which is against the passage of the 1995 Pensions Act which increased women's State Pension Age to 60. That was under Major. The headlines claiming "victory for WASPI women" are conflating the two.

xylophone said:

• That said, I do find it strange that so many women claim ignorance. Did none of them have any older  female friends or relations (mothers, even) who mentioned that they were drawing their state pension later than they had originally expected?
  

I recommend reading the Ombudsman's stage 1 report which goes into detail about the DWP's polling in the 2000s, and how this showed how many women - not most women, but a significant proportion, around 33% - still incorrectly believed their SPA was 60 even after all the campaigns by the DWP. How these polling figures were stubbornly failing to move despite the DWP's efforts. And how the DWP identified ways to change this, but failed to act on them quickly enough for the Ombudsman's liking.

The problem is that a lot of people prefer to ignore pensions as they are "years away". I very much doubt anything would have persuaded the stubborn 33% to think. Letters would have been glanced at and then thrown into the recycling.

michaels

Malthusian said:

Silvertabby said:

Actually, the issue in hand - DWPs failure to send out letters in a timely manner in the early 2000s - happened under a Labour Government.

Indeed, that was the issue considered by the Ombudsman. I was referring to WASPI's campaign, which is against the passage of the 1995 Pensions Act which increased women's State Pension Age to 60. That was under Major. The headlines claiming "victory for WASPI women" are conflating the two.

xylophone said:

• That said, I do find it strange that so many women claim ignorance. Did none of them have any older  female friends or relations (mothers, even) who mentioned that they were drawing their state pension later than they had originally expected?
  

I recommend reading the Ombudsman's stage 1 report which goes into detail about the DWP's polling in the 2000s, and how this showed how many women - not most women, but a significant proportion, around 33% - still incorrectly believed their SPA was 60 even after all the campaigns by the DWP. How these polling figures were stubbornly failing to move despite the DWP's efforts. And how the DWP identified ways to change this, but failed to act on them quickly enough for the Ombudsman's liking.

It is not very comfortable reading for those who believe that it's all on the individual to keep up with changes in law and find out what their SPA is. But it does illustrate the logic behind the Ombudsman's decision and their recommendation (woolly as it is) of £1k - £3k payouts. From the Ombudsman's perspective, the DWP knew there was a problem, tried to solve the problem, but failed to do it quickly enough. Lessons must be learned and those who lost out from that failing should be compensated. To the tune of low four figures. The Ombudsman are not taking an adversarial, tribal view of "WASPI are in the wrong, therefore they should get nothing".

How many times did the govt communicate the age 60 original pension age to these women? - I suspect much less than they communicated the change to 65.

dunstonh

That would be the same Treasury who agreed to business rates relief for supermarkets, whilst Excluding circa 3 million people from support during the pandemic, would it?

They didn't exclude you.   You chose to play the system to minimise your tax liability, but it came back and bit you on the bum.  That was your own fault.    Admittedly, no one could have predicted that, but you made the choices to a) not have a monthly payroll (like most directors) and b) to use dividends to reduce your tax liability and pay no NI.

It is totally relevant - due to those at the time who said WASPI were not entitled to anything and were a laughing stock. They're not laughing now, are they?

And do tell us what insight you have that tells us they are getting money as nothing announced today indicates that.

woolly_wombat

Malthusian said:

I recommend reading the Ombudsman's stage 1 report which goes into detail about the DWP's polling in the 2000s, and how this showed how many women - not most women, but a significant proportion, around 33% - still incorrectly believed their SPA was 60 even after all the campaigns by the DWP. How these polling figures were stubbornly failing to move despite the DWP's efforts. And how the DWP identified ways to change this, but failed to act on them quickly enough for the Ombudsman's liking.

It is not very comfortable reading for those who believe that it's all on the individual to keep up with changes in law and find out what their SPA is. But it does illustrate the logic behind the Ombudsman's decision and their recommendation (woolly as it is) of £1k - £3k payouts. From the Ombudsman's perspective, the DWP knew there was a problem, tried to solve the problem, but failed to do it quickly enough. Lessons must be learned and those who lost out from that failing should be compensated. To the tune of low four figures. The Ombudsman are not taking an adversarial, tribal view of "WASPI are in the wrong, therefore they should get nothing".

That’s very interesting.

The ombudsman has clearly done their homework.

Many of us will have read press reports around the time of the Pensions Act 1995 but it’s undeniable that there has been a failure to communicate the changes to individuals going back over many decades and on the watch of both Conservative and Labour governments if around 33% of women were still unaware of the changes to state pension age in the 2000s.

Having said that, a professional and highly intelligent friend of mine who is around nine years older than me and who received her state pension at 60 was pretty gobsmacked when I recently told her that I wouldn’t receive my state pension until I was 66. Until then I think she felt very hard done by at missing out on the new ‘flat rate’ state pension despite having retired on a very generous contracted out DB pension that she also received at 60!

DaveMcG

Frankly, the Ombudsman should be sacked. Despite knowing that there is no legal requirement for individual notice about the state pension changes, they have persisted with stratospheric level virtue signalling and in an election year, politicians of all persuasions are following along.

Since 1995, not only has the state retirement age changed, but

serps was amended several times 

serps was replaced with the second state pension

years required to accumulate full pension were reduced

second state pension was abolished along with contracting out and replaced by new state pension

years required to accumulate full pension were then increased

Right to share of spouses pension was terminated with new pension (that will be another issue no doubt).

I can't remember getting any personal notice of all these changes, despite being affected by all of them and having retirement date increased.

Parliament could pass legislation to terminate the state pension immediately without any notice next month and a bleating Ombudsman couldn't do a thing about it. So why do they think that changes affecting a vocal group should have preferential treatment in defiance of legal precedent?   

Sarahspangles

It’s interesting that 33% of (affected?) women weren’t aware of the changes in the early 2000s and still thought their retirement age was 60. However if there was a similar survey today checking people’s understanding of topics like higher rate tax and common law marriage, would a similar %age be ignorant?

I mean, how many times has someone told you they decided not to go for promotion because they would pay 40% tax on all their earnings and take home less than they do now? Or hear that someone assumed they would inherit or be entitled to a share of a partner’s house on death/relationship split. I don’t think it’s 33% but it’s not 0%.

Or that 4% is a safe withdrawal rate….[wink]

GibbsRule_No3.

DaveMcG said:

Frankly, the Ombudsman should be sacked. Despite knowing that there is no legal requirement for individual notice about the state pension changes, they have persisted with stratospheric level virtue signalling and in an election year, politicians of all persuasions are following along.

Since 1995, not only has the state retirement age changed, but

serps was amended several times 

serps was replaced with the second state pension

years required to accumulate full pension were reduced

second state pension was abolished along with contracting out and replaced by new state pension

years required to accumulate full pension were then increased

Right to share of spouses pension was terminated with new pension (that will be another issue no doubt).

I can't remember getting any personal notice of all these changes, despite being affected by all of them and having retirement date increased.

Parliament could pass legislation to terminate the state pension immediately without any notice next month and a bleating Ombudsman couldn't do a thing about it. So why do they think that changes affecting a vocal group should have preferential treatment in defiance of legal precedent?   

Maybe they needed the letter in the WASPI instance, as it affected women receiving pension age, rather than affecting everyone as it looks like most of your changes do. I don't think men and women got one saying it went up to 66/67 for everyone when that was changed.

MattMattMattUK

Sarahspangles said:

It’s interesting that 33% of (affected?) women weren’t aware of the changes in the early 2000s and still thought their retirement age was 60. However if there was a similar survey today checking people’s understanding of topics like higher rate tax and common law marriage, would a similar %age be ignorant?

I mean, how many times has someone told you they decided not to go for promotion because they would pay 40% tax on all their earnings and take home less than they do now? Or hear that someone assumed they would inherit or be entitled to a share of a partner’s house on death/relationship split. I don’t think it’s 33% but it’s not 0%.

Or that 4% is a safe withdrawal rate….[wink]

Probably fairly significant, I see the idea that the higher rate applies to all earnings once one crosses the threshold, common law marriage is still believed by quite a few, very few people realise that those earning more than £100k start to lose some/all of the personal allowance, that dividend is paid from retained post tax profit, that energy suppliers do not have huge profit margins, with little understanding of things more complicated than that. 

I can easily imagine that regardless of being sent a letter, told directly or any other method of communication, a significant minority of people would still manage to remain ignorant of the message communicated. 

Malthusian

Those of us with long memories will remember that WASPI threads used to attract heated debate between both sides of the fence, which MSE used to stir by writing pro-WASPI articles on their website followed by an official forum thread for each one, at which point the argument would go round again.

Now the only voice posting in favour of WASPI is in fact posting about a completely different and more recent grievance (the Government paying lockdown relief to business owners in line with how much they told HMRC they were earning).

WASPI is a dead duck. It is revealing that long after WASPI has essentially expired, the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman is patiently still grinding their complaints through its wheels, and journalists are still posting misleading headlines along the lines of "thousands of women owed pension payout after WASPI ruling", while not mentioning that the payout in question will would be in the region of 2-3% of the amount originally demanded.

(*edit* - if of course Parliament decides to award any payout at all.)