Thanks to your commitment, incredible support and generous donations, our lawyers were able to go ahead and file the papers in our judicial review claim at Court on Friday. We are hopeful we will be able to meet our stretch target to enable us to take our claim all the way as long as the Court is willing to grant us a ‘cost capping order’ (see below). Meanwhile, please do continue to contribute what you can to our crowdfunding campaign. Every donation, large or small, makes taking the legal claim forward possible.

The Court has already acknowledged receipt of the claim, and we now have seven days to “serve” our claim on the Government’s lawyers.  Once that step is taken, the Government and any “interested parties”, including the Ombudsman, will have three weeks to file their summary legal arguments in response.  A High Court Judge will then decide if our claim will have “permission” to go ahead to a full hearing. Normally this happens without a hearing.

The other important decision we will ask the Judge to take at this preliminary stage is to grant us a cost capping order. We cannot know how much the Government is prepared to spend on its lawyers to defend its decision-making, but it is likely to be near to, or possibly even more than, the amount we are realistically able to raise through CrowdJustice. We also need to ensure our lawyers are paid fairly. After all, those representing the Government will be paid regardless of whether we win or lose. The cost capping order will mean that the legal costs we can recover from the Government will be limited, as will the costs it can recover from us if we lose. This, in turn, will mean our lawyers can be paid for their work, though much less than they would normally charge if the claim does not succeed and a higher amount, though again less than their normal changes, if we win. However, to get a cost capping order, we need to demonstrate we have raised as much as we possibly can, and will continue to do so during the life of the case. So your ongoing donations are critical.

We will keep you up to date throughout in what happens with the application for permission and cost capping order. Those who have made donations to the crowdfunding campaign will get a preview of our legal arguments in our ‘Grounds of Claim’ very soon and we will publish them in full by the end of the week so watch this space.

In the meantime, we wanted you to read some of what WASPI’s chair Angela Madden has told the Court in her witness statement:

“To say the Government’s reasoning for its decision was absolutely unconvincing would be charitable. Frankly, it was unreal. To say that the majority of women, or all women, knew or ought to have known that their SPa was changing certainly does not ring true according to our experience, or those of the women we represent.  Similarly, it is our members’ experience that they certainly would have read, remembered and engaged with letters concerning their SPa, had they received them.  Many women have told us that the moment of receiving their individualised letters from the DWP was a very significant moment in their lives, when they realised they had made retirement and other plans on the basis of incomplete and incorrect information and that they would be far worse off than they had anticipated…

This case is of real importance to over three million women.  Many of us have waited almost ten years for our complaints to be determined through the DWP and ICE’s complaints process and for the conclusion of the PHSO’s investigation.  Having finally achieved acknowledgement by the PHSO that we have suffered injustice caused by the DWP’s maladministration, we now want to make sure that the Government makes the response to the PHSO’s investigation what we and other 1950s-born women deserve. It is completely wrong for all of us to be told that the reports are flawed because of ‘oversights’ and that none have suffered any injustice because of what the Government has extrapolated from two surveys”.

Thank you to all of you who have helped us put this evidence and our arguments to the Court. 

With your ongoing support we hope we can force the Government to reconsider its response to the Ombudsman’s report.

We will not give up.

As we said in last night’s update, on Monday evening our lawyers received a detailed letter from their counterparts in the government legal department who are advising the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the DWP.

We think it would be helpful for that letter to be published so that the 1950s-born women who were identified as the victims of maladministration by the Ombudsman can see for themselves the Government’s answers to the detailed arguments our lawyers have made about why the Government is legally wrong to say that none of us have suffered from any form of injustice as a result and so none of us should receive any compensation for the consequences.

We cannot say why the Government is unwilling for that letter to be published; our lawyers asked those representing the Government to agree to that happening but were simply told ‘no’.

We can say there is nothing in that letter that makes us doubt we would be doing the right thing by pressing on with our challenge to the Government’s decision.

We cannot say whether, after 10 years of DWP, delays, evasion and excuse-mongering, the Government’s lawyers have come up with some new, sophisticated and powerful argument to prove every 1950s-born woman was fully aware of the changes to our state pensions age - even though the DWP delayed sending out the letters notifying us of those changes that it had decided were urgent and necessary back in 2004.

We can say that our lawyers’ advice remains unchanged despite what is in the letter. Based on the discussions we have had with our lawyers, we still believe the  reasons the Government has given for rejecting the ombudsman’s findings on injustice and compensation proposals are bad and that we still have a good case in law to show they are unlawful. If we win that case, the Government will be forced to reconsider and cannot rely on the bad reasons it has given so far, based on the results of two surveys, for denying that all 1950s-born women have suffered injustice and for withholding compensation.

We cannot say why the Government is so persistently unwilling to talk to 1950s-born women about their experiences and what might be done to acceptably resolve the long-standing dispute about failure to promptly notify us about changes in our state pensions age.

We can say that despite us making a good faith, open offer of alternative dispute resolution in our lawyers’ letter, and other offers being made by other 1950s-born women in the past,  there is no agreement to try and find a way forward through discussion rather than court action. That is extremely disappointing given the ongoing, published commitment of the Government to seeking to resolve legal disputes out of court.

And so we can also say this. We are not going to ‘get over it’ and put up with something that is fundamentally wrong. Instead, our lawyers will be issuing our legal claim this week seeking judicial review of the Government’s decision.

In that claim, we will ask the High Court to decide whether the reasons it has given for its shameful decision really do stand up to scrutiny. We will continue to seek a meaningful response from the Government to our lived experiences of injustice and to the Ombudsman’s findings that our experiences are real and have had huge, life changing adverse impact.

And did we mention that WASPI women do not give up? We do not. With your support, we fight on.

Late yesterday evening we received a response from the government’s lawyers to our letter before claim setting out the arguments as to why last December’s decision by the Secretary of State responsible for the DWP is unlawful.

Our lawyers have asked those representing the DWP whether they agree to us publishing the response letter in the interests of openness and transparency. They have refused to agree to that and so we cannot publish, give details of, or comment on, that response at this stage.

What we can say is that the DWP’s position is unchanged. We are reviewing the response letter with our lawyers urgently. Unless they tell us that the arguments we want to put to the court are significantly undermined by anything in the response letter - which is unlikely - we will instruct them to prepare and file the papers for the judicial review claim so that the High Court can consider and rule on the legality of the decision.

We firmly believe the Secretary of State is wrong to deny that WASPI women suffered injustice as a result of the belatedly admitted DWP maladministration. We remain determined to challenge this.

Update 3: Next steps in our case challenging the Government’s decision that none of us has suffered injustice.

We’re very grateful to you all for your contributions to the fighting fund so far.  We are getting close to meeting our stretch target and urge you to please share our link with everyone in your network - we need their and your ongoing support. The money raised is being used exclusively to cover our own legal costs and protect WASPI against those it could be ordered to pay if the legal case is not successful.

What’s next in our judicial review challenge?

As you will have read in our previous update, on 23 February, we sent a formal legal letter to the Government setting out WASPI’s arguments.

In that letter, we invited the Government to withdraw its decision not to offer financial compensation to 1950s-born women and, if it was not willing to do that right away, proposed alternative dispute resolution (‘ADR’) (i.e. one or more out of court meetings aimed at resolving the dispute).

The Government’s lawyers are due to respond to our letter no later than 10 March 2025, so we will shortly find out whether or not they intend to defend the claim and/or if they are willing to be reasonable, meet and try to reach a settlement

If the Government does not withdraw its decision, we will need to take steps to formally ‘issue’ our claim at the High Court.  This is done by filing a Claim Form, our Statement of Facts and Grounds (a document setting out our legal arguments in detail), as well as any supporting evidence. In a judicial review, much of the process is front-loaded so our evidence is being prepared and our legal arguments are being refined now.

At the time we file our claim or shortly afterwards we will make a Costs Capping Order application. We will say more about this in in a later update, but basically it restricts the cost each side can claim from the other if they win – both sides are therefore  protected to some extent.

Once the Claim is issued, our lawyers will send a copy of all the documents to the Government who will then have three weeks to acknowledge receipt and to file their ‘Summary Grounds of Resistance’, which is their preliminary response to the Claim (in other words, their written defence). Our lawyers will also send the Claim Form and supporting documents to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (‘PHSO’) so she can participate in the case if she wishes to do so. In the past, when the Government’s response to a PHSO report has been challenged, the PHSO has stepped up to defend her decision-making.

After the Government has filed its Summary Grounds, WASPI will have an opportunity to file a written reply.

Once the Court has received all the legal arguments, it will allocate the case to a High Court Judge, who will read all the papers and decide whether or not the case should be granted ‘permission’ to proceed to a full hearing. Normally there is no hearing at this stage, though there can be one.  To grant permission, the Judge needs to be satisfied that the claim contains an ‘arguable’ ground for judicial review which has a ‘realistic prospect of success’.  The Judge must also take into account the importance of the case, the timing of the case and whether it is being brought by the appropriate Claimant. 

If permission is refused on any or all of the grounds, then we have the right to request reconsideration of that decision at an in person hearing before a High Court judge (unless permission has been refused at such a hearing).

If permission is granted, the Court will make arrangements for a full hearing of the claim.  The parties will file further evidence and legal arguments in the lead up to that hearing.

At the full hearing, the Judge will hear legal arguments from barristers acting for WASPI, the Government and any other party who has permission to participate.

Following the hearing, it is likely that the Judge will “reserve” their judgment, which means they will give their decision a few weeks later.

If the Judge agrees with WASPI’s arguments, they would make an order “quashing” the Government’s decision, which means the decision would be withdrawn and would no longer apply.  The Government would then need to go back and reconsider its decision, bearing in mind any findings made in the judgment.

Why judicial review and why now?

We have therefore set out our legal arguments in real detail so the Government can consult its own lawyers, decide whether to try to settle the case without the need for legal action or at least agree to ADR. We appreciate there are groups besides WASPI who have been campaigning for recognition of and compensation for what has happened to 1950s born women, some of which have already pressed it to agree to ADR with them. Further, in the past the Government has pledged to consider ADR offers seriously.

However, the Government rarely agrees to ADR in judicial review cases and there is no way we can force the Government into ADR with WASPI or anyone else.

Decisions to take no meaningful action on a PHSO report cannot be appealed and judicial review certainly is not an appeal. However, it is a process by which the High Court can consider the lawfulness of decisions made by public bodies.  It is an important part of our constitution, which ensures that public bodies comply with their legal duties and do not abuse their powers. 

Judicial review is not a straightforward process. Success cannot be guaranteed, nor does success in this case mean the Government must compensate anyone. It means the Government will have to rethink its position and cannot to rely on the central arguments to refuse compensation – the arguments that none of us suffered injustice that are based on the 2014 and 2006 surveys which WASPI believes are legally wrong. Judicial review has been used successfully before to challenge Government refusals to implement PHSO recommendations (for example, in R (Bradley) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2008] ECWA Civ 36). After that case, the Government went on to make positive changes to its compensation scheme.

Thank you again for your kind donations.  We won’t give up.  Every donation makes a difference, so please continue to support us. 

The WASPI team

Our judicial review case against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: the details

As promised, we are now in a position to share our lawyers’ letter to the DWP which sets out our detailed legal arguments in the proposed judicial review claim. Here it is.

We have redacted (blanked out) the personal addresses of some of the officials to whom the letter has been sent.

We set out the arguments below. Before that, a very quick update on funding.

We are delighted to report that we have now exceeded our initial £75,000 fundraising target and so we are extending it to a ‘stretch target’ of £180,000. We believe this will cover much of the costs of the case beyond the ‘permission stage’ discussed in the last update plus what is needed to cover the Secretary of State’s costs if we lose as long as the Court is willing to make a special ‘cost capping order’. Such an order limits what each side can claim from the other if they win. We will say more about this in a later update to avoid this one becoming even longer. 

 What are WASPI’s key legal arguments?

 The key arguments are:

• In its July 2019 First Report, the PHSO found that the DWP had acted with maladministration in the communication of changes to State Pension age. The Ombudsman (PHSO) found that if DWP had made a reasonable decision in August 2005 and acted promptly, it would have written to affected women to tell them about the change to their State Pension age by, at the latest, December 2006. This means that women should have had at least 28 more months’ individual notice of the changes than they had and the opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans was lost.
• In March 2024, the PHSO’s final report concluded that the complainants had suffered injustice. The PHSO decided that the “primary injustice” was the denial of “opportunities to make informed decisions about some things and to do some things differently”, and the diminishment of the “sense of personal autonomy and financial control” that women who should have been sent letters sooner experienced.  The PHSO also found that there was “compounding” emotional injustice arising from maladministration in DWP’s complaints handling.  The PHSO indicated that he would have recommended payment of compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 for each of the “sample complainants” and recommended that the DWP should provide a remedy for others who have suffered a similar injustice because of the maladministration he had identified.
• Case law (R (Equitable Members Action Group) v HM Treasury [2009] EWHC 2495 (Admin)) has established that the PHSO has the primary task of assessing the nature of maladministration and its consequences and that, although the Secretary of State is entitled to disagree with the PHSO’s assessment but that disagreement must be based on “cogent” reasons and she must not disregard the PHSO’s assessment.  If it is not, the Secretary of State’s decision will be unlawful. 
• The Government has said that research conducted in 2014 using a survey shows that “if a person is sent a letter, it is unlikely to make any difference to what they know” and therefore that the PHSO’s conclusion that women who were not sent a letter, or who were sent a letter too late, have suffered injustice is “at best, highly speculative”.
• But we say that this reasoning is irrational and does not amount to a “cogent reason” for rejecting the PHSO’s conclusion that women suffered injustice. 
• The Government also says that there was no injustice and no justification for providing a remedy to 1950s born women because women knew their State Pension age was changing.  The Government relies on a survey called the ‘Attitudes to Pensions Survey 2006’, which it says shows that among women aged 45-54, 90% of women knew that the State Pension age was changing. 
• We say the Government was also irrational to rely on this survey.

Judicial reviews of this kind are unusual- not least because the Government normally accepts PHSO findings and recommendations. But we would not be the first to succeed. The leading case R (Bradley & Ors)) v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions & Ors [2008] EWCA Civ 36 was brought by members of our legal team.

 So, what is wrong with the Government relying on the 2014 survey to say the letters it delayed sending out to 1950s-born women made no difference?

 We say the 2014 survey does not support the Government’s decision at all because: 

• The 2014 survey concerned a “generic” letter which was very different to the letters that were sent to 1950s born women by the DWP.  The research concluded that a significant number of people could not recollect the general letter they had been sent and a portion of other persons said they had not read it through but had glanced at it.  However, the letters in the survey did not contain information specific to each individual concerning their pension; whereas the letters sent to 1950s born women made very clear that the information was “important information about your State Pension age” and clearly stated on the first page the date on which the recipient would reach State Pension age.
• The DWP had chosen to send “targeted, personalised” letters, for the very reason that they were likely to be more impactful than generic letters.  It is irrational for the DWP to now argue that limited impact of generic letters supports a conclusion that a personalised letter would have had no effect on what women knew about their own State Pension age.
• In any event, the 2014 survey does not undermine the PHSO’s finding on injustice, which was that 1950s-born women “lost the chance to receive, read and act on a letter earlier” and therefore “lost opportunities to make informed decisions”.  This injustice happened regardless of whether women would have remembered letters several weeks after receipt or whether individuals chose to read them in full or act upon them at the time they received them.
• Anyway, the 2014 survey results are not reliable as an indicator of the impact that letters sent in 2006 would have had, given the changes in society’s reliance on postal communications, the growth of the use of the internet and websites for providing information.
• The DWP is wrong to say that the PHSO did not take the 2014 research into account. The DWP provided the PHSO with the 2014 research and made arguments to the PHSO about it in its responses to the Stage 1 and Stage 2 draft reports.  The PHSO directly addressed the DWP’s arguments in her final Stage 2 and 3 report. The DWP was given a full opportunity to raise these issues during the PHSO’s investigation, it did so and the DWP’s arguments were taken into account by the PHSO.
• These flaws in the Government’s reasoning means that the DWP was wrong to reject the PHSO’s finding of injustice on this basis and also to rule out providing any remedy to affected women.

 What about the 2006 survey, then? What’s legally wrong with the Government relying on that?

We say that the 2006 survey does not provide a sound or rational evidential basis for the Government to reject the PHSO’s findings on maladministration and remedy because:

• The 2006 Survey simply asked participants whether the following two statements were “definitely or probably” true/false: “at the moment, women can receive the State Pension when they are 60” and “the age women can receive their State Pension is going to change in the future”.
• The survey does not provide any evidence concerning individuals’ knowledge of their own State Pension age.
• The PHSO recognised in his Stage 1 Report that although many women knew that State Pension age was changing, many did not appreciate that this would affect them personally; that the DWP itself recognised in 2007 that, although “some women do in fact have an awareness of the impending change, they do not understand how this relates specifically to them”; and that was the very reason DWP decided to send targeted individualised information to 1950s born women.
• That the DWP’s reference to it being “reasonable to expect” women to “take personal responsibility and check expert advice” is inconsistent with the DWP’s acceptance that the failure to send letters earlier amounted to maladministration.  That is because the conclusion that failing to send letters sooner amounted to maladministration was partly because the DWP recognised itself that general sources of information were inadequate and personalised letters were necessary.
• The 2006 survey itself was flawed, in that it prompted the participants to consider changing State Pension age and they may not otherwise have considered or recalled information about it; the questions asked in the survey were ‘leading’ questions; and the survey did not allow participants to answer “not sure” or “don’t know”. 

What does our lawyers’ letter ask the Government to do?

Our letter asks the Government to acknowledge that its decision to reject the Ombudsman’s findings is unlawful and to withdraw its decision.  If it does not, WASPI will issue judicial review proceedings in the High Court and ask a judge to decide whether the Government’s decision is lawful.

What happens next?

Our lawyers’ letter was sent on 23 February. The Government’s lawyers now have 14 days to respond, so we can expect to hear from them by no later than 10 March 2025. We will continue to keep you updated.

What happens if WASPI has to go to Court?

As with our last judicial review, the next step is to seek ‘permission’ for judicial review (the stage in the judicial review process in which a High Court Judge will decide whether we have an arguable case that has been brought promptly and within three months by a body with a proper interest in the outcome of the case i.e. WASPI). We need to cover the costs of our lawyers’ and any experts’ fees, court fees and the DWP legal costs that could be awarded against WASPI if permission is not granted when the judge considers our legal submissions and evidence either ‘on the papers’ or at a hearing. We also need to apply for a special order to limit legal costs.

If permission is granted, the case will proceed to a full hearing in a few months’ time. We are confident we have a good case to put to the court, but no one can ever be certain about the outcome of legal action. If we win, the Government will have to withdraw its decision to reject the Ombudsman’s finding on injustice and its decision not to compensate 1950s born women.  It will need to go away and think again and make a new, lawful decision about whether 1950s born women have suffered an injustice and how to provide a remedy for them. Succeeding in the judicial review does not mean that the Government would need to provide compensation, but it will require them to think again. They will no longer be able to rely on the central arguments to refuse compensation – the arguments based on the 2014 and 2006 surveys which WASPI believes are legally wrong. Succeeding in the judicial review is also important to vindicate the Ombudsman’s findings that the Government not only was guilty of maladministration but it caused injustice to millions of women. 

Most importantly, thank you

Finally, thank you to all of you have generously donated to our fighting fund so far.  We have made fantastic progress towards our target today.  Further donations will ensure we can take our case to Court to seek permission for judicial review.

With best wishes

The WASPI team, 

WASPI has been heartened this morning by the exceptional amount of press and online media interest in our judicial review challenge to the Secretary of State for Work and Pension’s remarkable decision that no WASPI woman has suffered any injustice as a result of DWP maladministration and so no compensation should be paid to any of us.

But we are even more heartened by the support we have already had in the form of donations via CrowdJustice to our fighting fund for the challenge. We have already met our initial £75,000 target.

That initial target is what we need to seek permission for judicial review (the first stage in the judicial review process in which a High Court Judge will decide whether we have an arguable case that has been brought promptly and within three months by a body with a proper interest in the outcome of the case i.e. WASPI). We need to cover the costs of our lawyers’ and any experts’ fees, court fees and the DWP legal costs that could be awarded against WASPI if permission is not granted when the judge considers our legal submissions and evidence either ‘on the papers’ or at a hearing. We also need to apply for a special order to limit legal costs.

We will say more about the judicial review process and what can be expected at each stage in future updates – and look out for the next one in which we will be publishing our letter before claim setting out our legal arguments in detail..

For now, thank you very much to everyone who has donated first thing today. By standing together, we will make sure this decision does not go unchallenged.