Millions of older women are a step closer to getting compensation after it was ruled the Government was too slow in communicating changes to the state pension age.
The ruling by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) marks an important victory for the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign.
However, the ombudsman won’t be able to refund "lost" pensions and the women who are affected are still unable to get their state pension any earlier than the current law allows.
The PHSO had been probing how the Government let women born in the 1950s know their state pension age would rise from 60 to 66.
The 1995 Pensions Act equalised the state pension age for men and women.
In its ruling, the ombudsman found the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to act quickly enough once it knew a significant proportion of women were unaware of the changes.
Many women said that they were not aware of the changes, and experienced significant financial loss and emotional distress as a result, the ombudsman ruled.
The issue is at the heart of the WASPI campaign, who say around 3.8 million women are affected.
The ombudsman said its investigation will go on to consider the impact these failings had.
The PHSO provides a complaint handling service for issues about the NHS in England and UK Government departments.
Amanda Amroliwala, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman CEO, said: "After a detailed investigation, we have found that the DWP failed to act quickly enough once it knew a significant proportion of women were not aware of changes to their state pension age. It should have written to the women affected at least 28 months earlier than it did.
"We will now consider the impact of these failings, and what action should be taken to address them."
Angela Madden, who chairs the WASPI campaign, said: "The findings reinforce what we, unfortunately, knew all along; that the DWP failed to adequately inform 3.8 million 1950s-born women that their state pension age would be increasing.
"These women have been waiting for many years for compensation. We cannot wait any longer. We are calling on the government to agree fair and adequate compensation rather than allow what has become a vicious cycle of government inaction to continue."
A DWP spokesperson said: "Both the High Court and Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the DWP, under successive governments dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants permission to appeal.
"In a move towards gender equality, it was decided more than 25 years ago to make the state pension age the same for men and women."
