To not have realised that my pension age has gone up?

[IIdentifyAsInnocent]

I'm 45, 46 this year. Checked online 2 years ago and my state pension age was 67, which I thought was bad enough, for some reason checked again today and it's gone up to 68!!

I knew that the govt were thinking of doing this but I have no recollection of being told it had actually happened. This affects my work pension which I now can't take until 68 too as it aligns to state pension age.

Annoyingly, my brother who is 2 years older can still retire at 67!
Have I missed some huge public announcement?

@Kathryn1983 you do realise that NHS staff/Fire Fighters etc pay huge sums personally into their pensions?

For example, rather than the 3% you just started, I pay 13.5% a month into mine!

And I pay at least 10% into mine but my employer only does 3%
your employer does 15%!
I used to work for the NHs so I know the difference yes you pay in more but even if you did a defined contribution scheme And contributions were the exact same total % of your salary you'd still get significantly less!

that's the point I'm making

you can't escape that when discussing the situation we are all in

read this if you don't believe me https://neu.org.uk/advice/your-rights-work/pensions/defined-contribution-pension-schemes/comparison-tps-career-average

im not saying it's right but I'm just saying you are still better off under even the new public sector pension schemes than ANY private company ones!

My point is that you can't compare someone paying in 3% with someone paying 13.5%, people who moan about DB schemes often don't realise the high amounts that people pay into them. Yes the employer pays more, but so does the employee. My pension payment is over £950 a month.

But even when you compare people who pay in 13.5% of their salary (and there are quite a few who pay similar contributions to the required member DB contribution) the DB scheme member is likely to get a significantly higher pension

It's been all over the news for years, I can't believe people don't know

Not read full thread. Re: pension age - when the state pension started (1909?) only 5 per cent of the population were above the state pension age, and now (according to census 2021), 18.6 per cent of people are above the age of 65. So I imagine that if the system was designed to be sustainable when only a very small percentage of the population (5 per cent) would be able to draw it, so if that were still the case today I imagine that the state pension age would have to go up to maybe 80 - or more? Not sure what age only 5 per cent of the population is older than, at the moment - be interested to find out though!

They can't change the terms of your works pension that you've already earned through contributions. They can only change the date of retirement in respect of future contributions. This would only apply to a final salary, or defined benefit pension.

Most pensions these days are money purchase, which means that the income can be taken from age 55 onwards.

The increase to 65, was included in the 1995 Pensions Act. Originally due to be phased in between 2010 and 2020, but in 2011 the coalition government sped up the process and as a result, the state pension age for women increased to 65 by November 2018, and then to 66 by October 2020.

The whole crux of the case was not that the Act itself didn’t give enough notice, but that the DWP didn’t write to any women affected by the rise for fourteen years after the Pensions Act was passed. Letters referring to the 1995 Act and the subsequent changes to it in 2011, were only sent out between 2009 and 2013. Some said they only received 12 months’ notice of a six-year delay to their pension which blew apart financial planning they had made in consideration of their original retirement age.

The PHSO found that the DWP was guilty of maladministration in its handling of the changes, relating to specific failings dating back to 2005 and 2006. The compensation recommended (between £1000 and £2950) was in recognition of the maladministration involved, not as direct recompense for loss of earnings or other financial consequences of the changes.

DWP have so far refused to accept responsibility and have indicated to the Ombudsman that they will not pay compensation. So the recompense people are frothing about here will probably be a long time coming. If ever. But if/when it does it will just be a wad of cash paid out in recognition of yet another government fuck up. Given the general disdain with which baby boomers and pensioners in general are held on MN, I wonder how many of those vehemently against a relatively small amount of compensation being awarded from public funds, in recognition that maladministration was a factor, had their hands out for the various publicly funded schemes running during the pandemic, or were happy to accept the cost of living payments made - which were basically recompense for the government allowing energy providers to rake in huge profits while the rest of us were afraid to put the heating on. I also wonder how many commenting are aware of how many battles WASPI age women have fought for over the years, from which you have benefited as a result.

I beg to differ. The PHS0 report stated quite clearly that the DWP did not communicate the changes fairly. The recommendation for modest compensation was based not on any financial loss suffered - this couldn’t be quantified - but on the fact that there was maladministration on the part of the DWP in failing to even begin to communicate the changes to the women affected, until fourteen years after the 1995 Pensions Act which legislated for the changes. In addition it cited as unfair the speeding up of the changes by the coalition government, including the raising of the age from 65 to 66 as part of that acceleration.

That doesn’t exonerate the DWP from the duty in which they failed - namely not officially notifying anyone affected of the changes until over a decade after they were legislated for. That’s why compensation is being considered - it’s maladministration.

You cherry picked. The report also went on to say:

However, DWP’s decision making following research reported in 2004 failed to give due weight to relevant considerations. The research recommended information should be ‘appropriately targeted’. DWP explored options for targeting information but, having considered the options, what it ended up doing was what it had already done. DWP failed to take adequate account of the need for targeted and individually tailored information or of how likely it was doing the same thing would achieve different results. Despite having identified there was more it could do, it failed to provide the public with as full information as possible. DWP failed to make a reasonable decision about next steps in August 2005 and failed to use feedback to improve service design and delivery. It therefore failed at this point to ‘get it right’ and ‘seek continuous improvement’. That was maladministration.

Following research reported in 2006, DWP failed again to ‘get it right’ and ‘seek continuous improvement’. It did not act promptly enough on its November 2006 proposal to write directly to affected women to tell them about changes to State Pension age. And it failed to give due weight to how much time had already been lost since the 1995 Pensions Act. That was also maladministration.

We consider that, if DWP had made a reasonable decision in August 2005 and then acted promptly, it would have written to affected women to tell them about changes to their State Pension age by, at the latest, December 2006. This is 28 months earlier than DWP actually began to write to them. It follows that these women should have had at least 28 months’ more individual notice of the changes than they got. The opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans was lost.

And then went on to say that it failed to act on recommendations to improve its communication from 2005 onwards, and as a result opportunities for the women affected to adjust their plans was lost. I was going to post a link but another poster above has beaten me to it.

I do wonder what the women were doing in the 9 years that DWP did communicate appropriately… I certainly remember all the adverts etc.

If you have a denuded contribution over the years due to family responsibilities (not all family responsibilities qualify for relief) then 9 years is not enough time to make up a multi year shortfall when you are already in your 50s.

And of course many women did contact DWP directly to check their situation and were lied too. DWP was giving out unreliable information a lot more recently than 2005. I'm not in the affected group but I checked more than once and was given the wrong information each time.

@Rosscameasdoody if it's about an additional year or so, why, then, are they all carrying banners claiming 'We Woz Robbed' of figures like £60k, £57k etc.?

It seems to me, you may well have a greater handle on the case than those carrying those ridiculous banners. 😂

Insofar as fighting for rights is concerned, I'm not far off being a babyboomer, so a lot of the rights for which women fought were fought for by me too.

I genuinely do not know anyone with sympathy for WASPs other than themselves, their families and opportunistic politicians. In the case of the third group, I'm not convinced their sympathy is genuine unless it's affecting their own mother.

I retired early because I (and my then husband) took heed of the legislation changes and planned for those.

Call me a cynic, but even if DWP had communicated appropriately, I wonder how many of those notification letters would have been 'not received' by WASPs? 😉

@Trez1510

if it's about an additional year or so, why, then, are they all carrying banners claiming 'We Woz Robbed' of figures like £60k, £57k etc.?

I think it's this kind of thing that really damaged the WASPI's case. Far too much mixed messaging rather than concentrating on the actual failings as outlined in the official report.

If they'd have accepted the original 1995 changes as a done deal, which it is, and just concentrated on the poor communication, official mistakes, etc arising from the acceleration involved with the changes to 66 and 67, they may have gained more public support/sympathy.

As it stands, people are just going to laugh at those claiming they "deserve" compensation of £50k+ is that's just ridiculous.

The late changes made by Osborn around 2012/11 added several years to women who were within a few years of their former retirement age. That was the key changes which affected Waspi women.

Irrespective of what adverts and press say - women were contacting DWP to get the actual facts from the one true source of pensions information and being lied to. If DWP tell you that you as an individual, based on your NINO and personal details, qualify for your pension from date X are you seriously going to ignore that based on press reports?

The late changes made by Osborn around 2012/11 added several years to women who were within a few years of their former retirement age. That was the key changes which affected Waspi women.

Yes, and I have sympathy for the women affected by that. But that isn’t what a lot of WASPI women are complaining about. They’re complaining they didn’t know it was increasing from 60 / didn’t know about the 1995 changes