WASPI ‘victory’

p00hsticks

Malthusian said:

Mhairi Black said publicly that her position on WASPI consists entirely of "my mum told me to vote for this". I am not exaggerating.

Jonty6262 said:

 Martin also very much supported them too, I think he still does

I think a lot of people said that they supported them at the time, many of who seemed to take the WASPI claims at face value without doing any research of their own on the subject. 

I remember writing to my local MP before an election telling them that, speaking as one of the women affected, they had lost my vote due to their support of WASPI's misguided claims. I received an acknowledgement back but nothing further....

Pat38493

Interestingly I was talking to 2 relatives both in their 60s yesterday.  One of them was a management accountant and the other was part of a couple who had an accountant and financial adviser for decades.  

Both of them swear blind that they were not aware they had lost their right to a state pension at 60 until fairly recently and they insist that they never received any direct correspondence about it.  

I can half believe this as it’s the same with the NHS pension changes on the McCloud stuff - my wife never received a letter about it but the NHS insists that she did.

Also it seems that this has worked different to DB type pensions where for the most part there was a principle that you could not lose what you had already “built up” but only lose according to what you pay in going forwards.  I know that the state pension is unfunded but I guess this isn’t clearly understood.  

Silvertabby

Pat38493 said:

Interestingly I was talking to 2 relatives both in their 60s yesterday.  One of them was a management accountant and the other was part of a couple who had an accountant and financial adviser for decades.  

Both of them swear blind that they were not aware they had lost their right to a state pension at 60 until fairly recently and they insist that they never received any direct correspondence about it.  

I can half believe this as it’s the same with the NHS pension changes on the McCloud stuff - my wife never received a letter about it but the NHS insists that she did.

When the LGPS switched from final salary to CARE in 2014 we put out what we thought was a tsnunami of information....

Backs of pay statements for those who still had paper statements, attachments to on-line statements.

Personal e-mails to those on the intranet system, flyers for those who weren't.

Info packs to managers, including copies of flyers that they could hand out, and posters for notice boards.

Quarterly pensions information leaflet.

Yet, time after time when we mentioned the new pension scheme in routine phone calls, we got..."what new scheme - why haven't we been told about it?"  When we pointed out that we had been pushing out information for some time, the response "well, who ever bothers to read about boring pensions" was pretty standard.

jem16

Pat38493 said:

Also it seems that this has worked different to DB type pensions where for the most part there was a principle that you could not lose what you had already “built up” but only lose according to what you pay in going forwards.  I know that the state pension is unfunded but I guess this isn’t clearly understood.  

It works differently as the state pension isn’t a pension scheme at all. It’s a Contributory Benefit which we only become entitled to on reaching SPA and it’s based on the rules at the time of claiming just as with all benefits. 

Most people probably did hear about the SPA changing but never thought about how it affected them. For most it was simply “too far away “ when announced in 1993 during the Budget speech. 

jem16

Silvertabby said:

Pat38493 said:

Interestingly I was talking to 2 relatives both in their 60s yesterday.  One of them was a management accountant and the other was part of a couple who had an accountant and financial adviser for decades.  

Both of them swear blind that they were not aware they had lost their right to a state pension at 60 until fairly recently and they insist that they never received any direct correspondence about it.  

I can half believe this as it’s the same with the NHS pension changes on the McCloud stuff - my wife never received a letter about it but the NHS insists that she did.

Yet, time after time when we mentioned the new pension scheme in routine phone calls, we got..."what new scheme - why haven't we been told about it?"  When we pointed out that we had been pushing out information for some time, the response "well, who ever bothers to read about boring pensions" was pretty standard.

I think that’s pretty much the problem. No-one takes any notice of pensions till it comes time to take them. 

Basically the same issue with the state pension. Lots of info given out via Union newsletters but obviously never read or understood. Automatic Pension Forecasts sent out but enclosed booklets explaining the changes were never read. Letters sent out were thought of as wrong as they would be 60 before it reached 66. For many it just wouldn’t be taken in even if the Secretary of State made a personal house call. 

Pollycat

p00hsticks said:

Malthusian said:

Mhairi Black said publicly that her position on WASPI consists entirely of "my mum told me to vote for this". I am not exaggerating.

Jonty6262 said:

 Martin also very much supported them too, I think he still does

I think a lot of people said that they supported them at the time, many of who seemed to take the WASPI claims at face value without doing any research of their own on the subject. 

I remember writing to my local MP before an election telling them that, speaking as one of the women affected, they had lost my vote due to their support of WASPI's misguided claims. I received an acknowledgement back but nothing further....

My friends - I'm the eldest, several more are also in receipt of state pension, one has a couple of years to go - all got excited at the emergence of WASPI.
We had many a debate about it. I was the only one against - and I was affected by both pension Acts that put my pension back from 63.5 years to 64.75 years.

I did initially sign the WASPI petition that was debated (I think) in 2016 but requested that my signature be removed as the wording of the petition bore little resemblance to WASPI's 'ask' on Facebook.

MattMattMattUK

The idea that everything needs a letter is ridiculous, almost everything in life does not come with a letter, from the requirement to pay taxes through to not slaughtering people with a chainsaw. Whilst in legal terms ignorance is no excuse it seems that this lot seem to think that ignorance should get them a substantial amount of money.

sammyjammy

Silvertabby said:

Pat38493 said:

Interestingly I was talking to 2 relatives both in their 60s yesterday.  One of them was a management accountant and the other was part of a couple who had an accountant and financial adviser for decades.  

Both of them swear blind that they were not aware they had lost their right to a state pension at 60 until fairly recently and they insist that they never received any direct correspondence about it.  

I can half believe this as it’s the same with the NHS pension changes on the McCloud stuff - my wife never received a letter about it but the NHS insists that she did.

When the LGPS switched from final salary to CARE in 2014 we put out what we thought was a tsnunami of information....

Backs of pay statements for those who still had paper statements, attachments to on-line statements.

Personal e-mails to those on the intranet system, flyers for those who weren't.

Info packs to managers, including copies of flyers that they could hand out, and posters for notice boards.

Quarterly pensions information leaflet.

Yet, time after time when we mentioned the new pension scheme in routine phone calls, we got..."what new scheme - why haven't we been told about it?"  When we pointed out that we had been pushing out information for some time, the response "well, who ever bothers to read about boring pensions" was pretty standard.

This ^^^ with nobs on, I work in Civil Service and have lost count how many times I have had to explain the pension to people, even before the move to Final salary.  Some people would say you hadn't told them even if you had made an appointment and told them face to face.   There has to be some individual responsibility to keep yourself informed.

Andy_L

p00hsticks said:

Silvertabby said:

She said that didn't count - WASPE  had told her that only individual letters did, and that everyone had to say that they didn't get a letter/didn't know or they wouldn't get their pensions backdated to 60.

By that criteria, perhaps any compo should be conditional on people being able to produce their original individually addressed letters telling them that they would reach State Pension Age at the age of 60.....

IIRC one of the waspis at the court case produced the letter informing her off the very increase in retirement age she was denying ever being informed of. The judge congratulated her on her honesty 

dunstonh

Silvertabby said:

Jonty6262 said:

Pollycat said:

Is she (Black) still supporting WASPI?
I've not seen her name linked with them for a while.

Martin also very much supported them too, I think he still does

I don't normally watch his tv programmes, but made an exception for the recent pensions special, just so see how many things he could get wrong (answer: several).  And, yes, it was clear that he still supports the WASPEs.

When one becomes reliant on their brand, one cannot do things that tarnish the brand.