Waspi women hail ‘victory’

Local Waspi women are hailing what they call a "significant victory".

The Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, which raised £120,000 to launch a High Court judicial review against the Public Health Service Ombudsman, says it has been vindicated after the ombudsman conceded out of court that part of its investigation into how increases to the state pension age were communicated was flawed and must be reconsidered.

And the women born in the 1950s who lost out when the retirement age moved from 60 to 65, in line with men, called the concession an “unprecedented victory”.

Lynne Craighead, Waspi Scottish Borders Coordinator, said: “It's been a long and difficult fight, but we have won a significant battle this week, forcing the Parliamentary Ombudsman to withdraw his heavily flawed and irrational report and rewrite it. It's the first step on the way to fair and fast compensation for 1950s-born women."

In the first stage of its investigation into the Department for Work and Pensions’ communication of state pension age changes, the Ombudsman concluded that the Department of Work and Pensions had committed maladministration by failing to write promptly to the affected women.

Although the second stage has yet to be published, Waspi claims the PHSO has now conceded that a “legally flawed” calculation about the impact of the changes on women was made.