Government response to Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s Investigation into Women’s State Pension age communications and associated issues
Government response to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's investigation into Women’s State Pension age and associated issues.
Documents
Details
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) investigated complaints from women born in the 1950s that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to provide them with accurate, adequate and timely information about changes to the State Pension age and the number of qualifying years needed to claim the full rate of the new State Pension. The PHSO also looked at DWP’s and the Independent Case Examiner’s complaint handling.
The PHSO managed their investigation in stages. In July 2021, the PHSO published their findings on State Pension age maladministration and a final report was published in March 2024.
The PHSO’s published findings are available on their website.
The government responses
On 17 December 2024, the Secretary of State announced the Government’s response to the PHSO report: oral statement to Parliament.
On 11 November 2025, the Secretary of State announced that the Government would retake the decision about communications on State Pension age because new information had come to light.
On 29 January 2026, the Secretary of State announced the Government’s new response as it relates to communications on State Pension age: oral statement to Parliament
The Government response of 29 January 2026 replaces the part of the Government response of 17 December 2024 that relates to the communications on State Pension age.
Updates to this page
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Added a link to the oral statement made to Parliament on 29 January 2026.
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Updated on 29 January 2026 with the Government’s new response as it relates to communications on State Pension age.
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First published.