WASPI Women face twenty year wait for answers to complaints

It could take two decades for complaints by WASPI women to be investigated by the DWP, Scottish Labour has claimed.

Freedom of Information requests from campaigners, and Parliamentary questions from Labour’s Ged Killen MP, have revealed that there are just three people dealing with more than 2200 complaints from women who have missed out on their pensions.

At the rate of progress, Labour leaders say it could take the government’s Independent Case Examiner (ICE) 20 years to clear the backlog.

Scottish Labour MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Ged Killen said: “The Tory government has once again seriously underestimated the scale of the problem incurred by its reforms to the equalisation of the state pension age.

“The snail’s pace at which the government is processing complaints by WASPI women, because of woeful understaffing, means that these women may have to wait longer to get a response to a complaint than they would have to wait to receive their pension.

“Once again the government has shown its willingness to legislate without taking full account of the human cost.”

ICE was set up to investigate complaints from WASPI women regarding the equalisation of the state pension age.

According to FOI answers received by the WASPI campaign in November, the DWP has just three staff members investigating thousands of complaints.

But the scale of complaints and under resourcing has been further highlighted in answers to Parliamentary questions received by Ged Killen.

There are currently 2,205 complaints which are currently being processed by ICE. This includes 369 being assessed by the department on whether the case should be examined, 36 currently being investigated and 1,800 awaiting investigation.

Mr Killen added: “Since ICE was tasked with examining WASPI women complaints at the beginning of October, just 44 investigation reports into complaints about the equalisation of state pension age have been issued.

“The average waiting time for a response to a complaint is currently 9.75 weeks. At this rate, it would take 20 years for the DWP to finish examining the 2,205 outstanding cases.

“WASPI women already face huge disruption to their future financial plans. The government needs to introduce a service standard so that WASPI women are not required to wait, wait and wait some more when they raise a grievance. The Department for Work and pensions has, however, refused them even that courtesy.”