Ombudsman finds that WASPI women are owed compensation...

I might have missed something, but how are the affected women out of pocket?

I can understand they should have been told, and if they are due some money for the inconvenience or upset caused by lack of communication then fair enough. But I can't see how they can claim a specific amount for lost earnings or whatever.
Even if they did receive a letter in 1995, wouldn't they have still received the same pension as they ended up getting anyway? It's not as if they missed a chance to opt out of the change.

I also struggle to understand how they didn't know tbh. My wife was born in 1960 and gets her pension at age 66 and 7 months. She can't remember getting a letter but has known this for a while.
 
Will_Graham said:
I might have missed something, but how are the affected women out of pocket?

I can understand they should have been told, and if they are due some money for the inconvenience or upset caused by lack of communication then fair enough. But I can't see how they can claim a specific amount for lost earnings or whatever.
Even if they did receive a letter in 1995, wouldn't they have still received the same pension as they ended up getting anyway? It's not as if they missed a chance to opt out of the change.

I also struggle to understand how they didn't know tbh. My wife was born in 1960 and gets her pension at age 66 and 7 months. She can't remember getting a letter but has known this for a while.
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Some said that they made lifestyle choices on the basis of a pension at 60. So if they took early retirement at 55 they calculated they had enough private means to last them until the pension came in. It came as a shock somewhere along the line to find out that they were not going to get a pension until the age of 65 or 66.

Now the Gov.Uk portal for pensions gives a clear retirement date for anyone in doubt and will give the expected pension amount. It gives an indication of how long contributions have been made and what can help to boost the payment.

The kicker though for some is that if they had some private income before their pension, they may have waited 6 years longer than they thought to get a State pension and now have to pay income tax as they will be over the threshold!
 
onenilawayfromhome said:
Some said that they made lifestyle choices on the basis of a pension at 60. So if they took early retirement at 55 they calculated they had enough private means to last them until the pension came in. It came as a shock somewhere along the line to find out that they were not going to get a pension until the age of 65 or 66.

Now the Gov.Uk portal for pensions gives a clear retirement date for anyone in doubt and will give the expected pension amount. It gives an indication of how long contributions have been made and what can help to boost the payment.

The kicker though for some is that if they had some private income before their pension, they may have waited 6 years longer than they thought to get a State pension and now have to pay income tax as they will be over the threshold!
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OK, thank you.
It sounds as though it would need to be assessed on a person by person basis really. Some will have been affected more than others and some not at all. Are those who didn't make any plans or lifestyle changes included?
I don't understand your point about income tax. Isn't that calculated annually on earnings? How will what they earned for the extra 6 yrs make a difference?
 
Will_Graham said:
It sounds as though it would need to be assessed on a person by person basis really
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Any compensation scheme would likely need to be a blanket scheme. Not a chance that a system can be set up to assess more than 3 million individual circumstances.
 
Will_Graham said:
OK, thank you.
It sounds as though it would need to be assessed on a person by person basis really. Some will have been affected more than others and some not at all. Are those who didn't make any plans or lifestyle changes included?
I don't understand your point about income tax. Isn't that calculated annually on earnings? How will what they earned for the extra 6 yrs make a difference?
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It's as much about the information being given to people that would be affected.

The initial communication didn't mention that it would be staggered depending on when you were born; so many women thought they would be not affected.

The DWP actually conducted research that showed that a good proportion of women affected weren't aware of how it would. They then conducted further research that showed even only a couple of years before it was implemented a lot of women were still not aware of it. They didn't sufficiently ramp up the information being given.

Not everybody is politically active and aware of things that happen in the world and it's up to the government (the Civil Service - not political party) to communicate to the population.
 
Unravel_Morrison said:
It's as much about the information being given to people that would be affected.

The initial communication didn't mention that it would be staggered depending on when you were born; so many women thought they would be not affected.

The DWP actually conducted research that showed that a good proportion of women affected weren't aware of how it would. They then conducted further research that showed even only a couple of years before it was implemented a lot of women were still not aware of it. They didn't sufficiently ramp up the information being given.

Not everybody is politically active and aware of things that happen in the world and it's up to the government (the Civil Service - not political party) to communicate to the population.
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How did they know they were getting a pension in the first place? I don't think 15-25 years of ignorance is a good enough excuse.
 
Nano said:
How did they know they were getting a pension in the first place? I don't think 15-25 years of ignorance is a good enough excuse.
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I don't know but the DWP knew that there was a lack of awareness and some of the information especially early on wasn't correct. It was saying that the age would change in 2020 from 60-65; so if you read that I could understand why you might not realise that it would rise incrementally and end up being 65 in 2020.
 
The DWP are quite bad at communicating things that affect people. I didn't know for example that if you lose your job, you shouldn't register for Universal Credit until after your employer has reported your final salary payment; it's not when you get paid. So if you lose your job on say the 10th of the month and get paid off; if your payroll department process your payment with HMRC on the last day of the month, there's no point financially in starting your claim until the 1st of the next month.
 
sherlock1969 said:
Any compensation scheme would likely need to be a blanket scheme. Not a chance that a system can be set up to assess more than 3 million individual circumstances.
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Of course, which will mean some people will get more than they should (e.g. people who made no adjustment at all, or those who were fully aware of the change) and some will get less (people who were genuinely hardshipped because of it). I would imagine the latter will be the minority, especially if 3m people are included.

A member of my family is included, and she is just seeing any payment she might get as a pure bonus.
She had several jobs but didn't need to work for the money, her husband was the main earner and they have always been comfortable. She wasn't affected in the slightest by not receiving a letter.
Should she get compensation? I can't see what for.
Will she get it? Probably.
 
Will_Graham said:
Of course, which will mean some people will get more than they should (e.g. people who made no adjustment at all, or those who were fully aware of the change) and some will get less (people who were genuinely hardshipped because of it). I would imagine the latter will be the minority, especially if 3m people are included.

A member of my family is included, and she is just seeing any payment she might get as a pure bonus.
She had several jobs but didn't need to work for the money, her husband was the main earner and they have always been comfortable. She wasn't affected in the slightest by not receiving a letter.
Should she get compensation? I can't see what for.
Will she get it? Probably.
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It would cost far more to do it on an individual basis. People would still apply for it if they thought they could get free money and you'd have to set up an appeals system for any contentious decisions and there would be more of them if it was done on an individual basis.
 
sherlock1969 said:
Any compensation scheme would likely need to be a blanket scheme. Not a chance that a system can be set up to assess more than 3 million individual circumstances.
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Compensation for what? Being ignorant? My pension age has already increased since I started working should I just retire at 65 and plead ignorance?
 
thewanderer said:
Compensation for what? Being ignorant? My pension age has already increased since I started working should I just retire at 65 and plead ignorance?
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Regardless of your opinion, the Ombudsman has decided the affected women deserve compensation.

That’s all that matters and is the only view that counts for anything.
 
Unravel_Morrison said:
It would cost far more to do it on an individual basis. People would still apply for it if they thought they could get free money and you'd have to set up an appeals system for any contentious decisions and there would be more of them if it was done on an individual basis.
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I don't disagree. That is why the level of compensation will be lower than those genuinely affected will have expected/deserved but more than others.

And I still can't really see how 3m people will have lost money because of the missing letter. It sounds like it would need a very specific set of circumstances which probably wouldn't apply to the majority.
 
Unravel_Morrison said:
I always try and stick up for how this country is governed by comparing us to countries like Armenia.
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I don’t think that’s fair comment. I am not intending to, and would not, stick up for this government. But I was sticking up for accuracy.

If we are the worst country in Europe, we have to be worse than Armenia, because Armenia is a country in Europe. And we aren’t. So we aren’t. My point does not go beyond that.
 
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