The communication of State Pension age increases for women born in the 1950s

From the 1940s until April 2010, the State Pension age (SPA) in the United Kingdom was 60 for women and 65 for men. Legislation to equalise and increase the SPA has been introduced in several stages since the 1990s. The Pensions Act 1995 legislated to increase the SPA for women from 60 to 65 in stages between April 2010 and 2020, to bring it into line with that for men. The Pensions Act 2011 brought forward the increase in women’s SPA to 65 to November 2018.

These changes and how they were communicated have been controversial. They have given rise to a long-standing campaign led by some women born in the 1950s, arguing they have been hit particularly hard by significant changes to their SPA imposed without sufficient notification. This led to an unsuccessful judicial review challenge to the increase in women’s SPA, which was dismissed by the High Court in October 2019, and again by the Court of Appeal in September 2020.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman investigation

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) conducted an investigation into six sample complaints about how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) notified women born in the 1950s about rises in their State Pension age.

A PHSO investigation is usually conducted in three stages. The first stage looks at whether maladministration has occurred, the second on whether any maladministration led to injustice, and, if so, the third stage looks at what remedy should be applied.

In a report of its first stage of the investigation, published on 19 July 2021, the PHSO found that while accurate information was made publicly available by the DWP about these State Pension age increases through various means between 1995 (when they were first legislated for) and 2004, maladministration had taken place in 2005 and 2006 because the DWP failed to use feedback and research into public awareness to improve the way it notified affected women. This, it said, led to a 28-month delay in beginning a direct mail exercise to notify affected women.

The Ombudsman’s conclusions

The final report of the PHSO’s investigation, on the second and third stages, was published on 21 March 2024. It concluded that the delay in the DWP’s direct mail exercise informing 1950s-born women about State Pension age changes meant that “some women lost opportunities to make informed decisions about their finances,” which “diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control” and therefore led to injustice.

The PHSO laid its report before Parliament with a request that it intervene “to identify a mechanism for providing appropriate remedy for those who have suffered injustice”. It recommended that the six sample complainants receive compensation. It also recommended that a remedy for others who had suffered injustice because of this maladministration should be identified. It laid its report before Parliament with a request that it intervene “to identify a mechanism for providing appropriate remedy for those who have suffered injustice”.

The government’s response

The government responded formally to the PHSO’s report in December 2024.

The DWP set out in a published response that it accepted the PHSO’s finding that DWP decision-making between 2005 and 2007 led to a 28-month delay in beginning a direct mailing exercise to women born in the 1950s about changes to their State Pension age and that this was maladministration. It apologised for this. It also accepted that there had been issues with its complaint handling and apologised for that as well.

However, the government did not accept that a delay in its direct mail exercise resulted in the injustice found by the PHSO, citing evidence from research conducted in 2014 that only 1 in 4 people recall and read unsolicited letters from the DWP.

It therefore announced that it had decided not to introduce financial compensation recommended by the PHSO, either to the six complainants or to 1950s-born women more widely. It argued that introducing a compensation scheme would be neither “fair nor feasible” and “would not represent good value for taxpayers”.

In February 2025, the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign began a legal challenge to the DWP’s report.

This briefing provides further information on the PHSO’s investigation, the government’s response to it, and the surrounding debate.