Pause on action plan related to Waspi investigation was needed – DWP boss

A Department for Work and Pensions boss has told MPs he was “surprised” to see a letter from an ombudsman raising concerns about how the department is tackling lessons to be learned from the issues affecting Waspi women.

Work on an action plan started following the investigation into how state pension reforms were communicated to the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women.

But Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PSHO) chief Paula Sussex said in a letter to the chair of Work and Pensions Committee Debbie Abrahams that she was told in November that work on the action plan “had been paused to prioritise support for Ministers in retaking the decision on whether to offer financial compensation”.

Ms Sussex said in her letter that she had “serious concerns about the significant delays in the implementation of the actions that DWP committed to undertake and the communication with my office in relation to the state pension age investigation”.

The letter said that Ms Sussex welcomed “the committee’s support in ensuring that positive change is made to ensure that failings such as those experienced by Waspi women are not repeated”.

Giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee on Wednesday, Sir Peter Schofield, permanent secretary, Department for Work and Pensions, told the committee: “The PSHO copied me in on the letter. I was surprised to see it, to be honest.

“Let me talk to you about the work that we’ve been doing with PSHO and particularly the action plan and the seriousness with which we’re taking it.

“So obviously, back on December 17 2024, the then-secretary of state made her decision on the Waspi case, including the commitment to work with the ombudsman on an action plan.

“So as soon as we could get together, I met with, in fact, the interim ombudsman, Paula Sussex’s predecessor, on January 16 2025, so as soon as we could get together.

“We worked out how we were going to work together in developing the action plan.

“It took a while to mobilise, I think on their side as much as ours, but we then had two workshops in April and in June.

“And we agreed what we were going to do as a result of those action plans, one was on complaints and one was on communications.

“In the light of that we then developed an action plan within the department, working across all the relevant teams to develop a plan, based on what came out of the workshops that we had done with the ombudsman.

“That was then completed with a working draft at the end of the summer which we then had to impact across the department because we had to make sure it was deliverable, lots of teams would have been affected.

“And we had a working draft at the point when the Secretary of State on November 11 then made his statement to the House, saying he was going to retake the decision on Waspi.

“Now, I mean this is a serious Government exercise, this retaking of the decision.

“It does mean that we can’t work on the implementation of the previous decision, and the action plan was part of that.

“I met with the ombudsman before Christmas, and I explained where we were with the action plan, she said she wanted to know that we had been making progress, so I showed her the draft action plan.

“To be honest I thought that she was reassured, I thought if she was not reassured she would have let me know, but she wrote you a letter instead.”

On November 11 last year, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said his department would review the policy not to compensate women born in the 1950s who were affected by the increase in the pension age.

A report by the PHSO had previously suggested that compensation ranging between £1,000 and £2,950 could be appropriate for each of those affected by how state pension changes had been communicated.

In December 2024, the Government had previously said that, while it accepted the ombudsman’s finding of maladministration and apologised for a delay in writing to 1950s-born women, a blanket compensation scheme, which could cost taxpayers up to £10.5 billion, could not be justified.

Sir Peter told the committee: “While the work on the action plan is where I’ve described it, the other thing I really want to get across to the committee is the work that we are actually doing in terms of action on the front of making sure that we have got our communications right.

“So, you know, already we’ve got a whole series of campaigns under way at the moment, called ‘check your state pension age’, we’re going to evaluate that in April.

“That builds on previous campaigns, one about ‘get to know your state pension,’ and one called ‘will the retirement you get be the retirement you want?’.

“We’ve got online tools such as ‘check your state pension age’ and ‘check your state pension forecast’ and that enables anyone to go onto the system and see what their national insurance contribution records look like and it enables them to see what their forecast would be, what their state pension age would be.”

He added: “There is so much that we’re doing on this front, we’ve got the pension dashboard programme.”

Put to him that it had been more than a year since the action plan was first announced, Sir Peter said: “There is a formal, serious exercise going on here… which is re-taking a really important decision by Government.”

He said the action plan flows from a previous decision that is being looked at again, adding: “So there’s a formal Government process here under way. That means I’ve got to stop work on the implementation of the previous decision.

“That’s the formal position that we’re under.”

Asked if he believed that it would lead to a different action plan, Sir Peter said: “Obviously I can’t comment on the Secretary of State’s decision, I’m sure the decision will come before too long. So let’s see.

“But the ombudsman knows where we got to with the action plan, she saw it in draft, it was based on a series of interactions that we had with her people and also we are taking action to make sure that people are aware of their state pension age and their state pension situation.”