The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is under mounting pressure after campaigners representing millions of women born in the 1950s officially filed a judicial review application, accusing the government of failing to right decades of pension injustice. The details have now been released, with the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) women claiming the DWP acted ‘irrationally’ in its decisions.
And, the group seem confident – as the crowdfunder for the legal action has passed £180,000.
The DWP: ongoing WASPI scandal still sees no justice
The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) group submitted legal papers on Tuesday 8 April, challenging the DWP’s gross mishandling of state pension age changes which left many women with no time to adjust their retirement plans.
After years of bureaucratic stonewalling and political neglect, WASPI women are fighting back with the backing of leading public law experts—and they are not backing down.
At the heart of the legal challenge lies the DWP’s failure to properly notify affected women of a major change: the rise in the state pension age from 60 to 66. For thousands, the news arrived late—far too late to make up for the financial shortfall it would cause.
Many lost jobs, homes, and life savings as a result.
However, despite repeated findings that the DWP had failed in its duty, including a damning Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) report, the government has refused to pay compensation.
“The PHSO has already confirmed that maladministration occurred. The DWP broke its own rules and failed to communicate with the very women it was affecting. But still, no justice,” said a WASPI spokesperson:
We’ve been forced into this legal action because this government simply refuses to accept accountability.
Irrational, irrational, irrational
The DWP Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) legal case is being brought by Bindmans LLP and supported by Landmark Chambers, specialists in public law and human rights.
It seeks to review the DWP’s inaction following the Ombudsman’s final report in March. It recommended compensation at Level 4. This is the equivalent of between £1,000 and £2,950. WASPI and many MPs have slammed this as insultingly low, calling for payments more reflective of the scale of the harm done.
As the FT Adviser reported, the WASPI case against the DWP has two grounds – the first being its decision over compensation was “irrational”:
The first argument the WASPI group has made is that the government’s rejection of the PHSO’s findings about injustice was not based on “cogent or even rational reasons”.
In the government’s decision to not award compensation, the DWP said it was because the PHSO’s decision contained a “logical flaw” and it failed to take into account the fact that sending letters was “often not an effective way to change levels of awareness”.
Secondly, WASPI argues that:
The government’s rejection of the PHSO’s recommendations on remedy, on the basis that there was no injustice and no justification for the provision of a remedy, was not based on “cogent or even rational reasons”.
Within the government’s decision to not award compensation, it states “the substantial majority of the group of women who were not informed of the change to their state pension age cannot have suffered injustice because they were aware of their state pension age”.
However, in a move that has outraged campaigners and opposition MPs alike, the government has continued to sideline the issue.
The DWP must pay up for Women Against State Pension Inequality
Ministers have yet to commit to any form of redress, let alone the compensation levels demanded. Meanwhile, the affected women—now in their 60s and 70s—are dying at the rate of one every 13 minutes, according to Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) estimates.
“This is not just an administrative oversight. It’s an act of institutional cruelty,” said Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey:
The DWP owes these women not just an apology, but a meaningful, immediate remedy.
The judicial review application argues that the DWP’s failure to act breaches the principle of good administration. Therefore, its failures constitute a denial of justice.
Ultimately, the WASPI women want the government to right these wrongs. As the FT Adviser reported:
The WASPI group is requesting the High Court to declare that the government’s decision to not award compensation is “ vitiated by irrationality and/or an absence of cogent reasons”.
As well as quash the government’s decision in whole or in part and award the group its costs.
So, as the case proceeds campaigners are urging the public to support the fight for justice. “We will not be ignored any longer,” said one WASPI member:
The DWP may hope we’ll just go away—but we’re not going anywhere.
Featured image via the Canary
