The DWP is still defying the Ombudsman. Help WASPI fight back in court
The DWP is still defying the Ombudsman. Help WASPI fight back in court
Latest: June 2, 2026
So what's happening with WASPI's judicial review?
Here’s a very quick update on what’s going on in the court system.
First, the Government has filed its ‘Summary Grounds of Defence’.
This lengthy document is actually not much of a ‘summary’ – it goe…
Read moreOn 29 January 2026, 1950s-born women were told by the new Secretary of State, Pat McFadden, that hardly any of us have suffered injustice despite years of DWP delay in sending us letters to tell us about changes in our state pension ages and that none of us will be compensated despite the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) forcefully proposing that should happen after its longest-running investigation.
At the time, WASPI described Mr McFadden as a different DJ playing the same broken record. We stand by that.
The injustices we continue to experience thanks to DWP maladministration have not disappeared simply because a different Secretary of State has come up with yet more reasons to deny them. They remain very real for us. We know we have been wronged and the wrongs must be put right.
Although it is not an easy decision to begin another judicial review to seek a lawful and just decision from the Government on the PHSO’s injustice findings and compensation proposals, we must forge ahead together. The alternative is to accept the unacceptable, or focus only on campaigning to change politicians’ minds. By itself that is very unlikely to achieve much in the short term given the Government’s majority. Mediation has also been repeatedly refused.
We also believe strongly that the Government is wrong. It should simply take responsibility and accept its maladministration caused that injustice, rather than devise ever more sophisticated excuses. Regardless of whether we are ultimately compensated, it is hugely important that injustice is acknowledged and we are not blamed for not having found out our state pension age.
We have therefore launched a new judicial review claim in Court based on the arguments summarised below.
Pressing on with this judicial review will not be easy. We consider our arguments have a real chance of success, but winning is certainly not guaranteed. The Court cannot order that anyone is compensated. It can only rule that the Government’s reasons for rejecting the PHSO’s injustice findings and compensation proposals are not cogent or rational. Such a ruling would force the Government to reconsider and hopefully it would then finally accept there is large-scale injustice - having then run out of reasons to deny it. Even then, compensation is very unlikely to be paid by the present Government unless there is a major change in its thinking. So WASPI will continue to campaign for that in parallel with our judicial review.
We also need to raise more money to make the judicial review practical - despite appreciating how difficult it is for many women to contribute. Although we have been able to launch the judicial review using the fighting fund left over from our last case, we must crowdfund again to pay our lawyers to take the case forward to a hearing and protect WASPI against the Government’s legal costs.
Please stand with us and donate now so we can reach our first fundraising target for our new judicial review case.
More information about the arguments in the latest judicial review follows below. We will explain the procedure in later updates.
What happened with WASPI’s last judicial review?
As now, we challenged the Governments’ rejection of the PHSO’s injustice findings and compensation proposals. Permission for judicial review was granted on all our arguments demonstrating the strength of our case. Days before trial, the DWP admitted it had withheld critical information from Ministers, withdrew its decision to reject the PHSO’s findings and proposals and promised to reconsider. Some (but not all) of WASPI’s legal costs were paid under a settlement agreement. The Government’s new decision was made within the timetable we had forced it to accept.
Why has the Government again rejected the PHSO’s injustice findings and compensation proposals?
Announcing the Government’s 29 January decision, Mr McFadden said “the evidence shows that the vast majority of 1950s-born women already knew that the state pension age was increasing”. He added that we could have found out our own state pension ages - so there was hardly any injustice and we should not be compensated for the DWP’s failures to inform us. His announcement is here and the full reasons for it are here.
What are the arguments in WASPI’s new judicial review?
We know the injustice we have suffered is real – we still experience it daily. We know it must both be acknowledged by the Government and put right.
Our lawyers have explained this to the High Court in a detailed Statement of Facts and Grounds for Judicial Review they have also filed 5,180 pages of evidence. You can read the Grounds here (note, we have had to blank out references to the Government’s response to our solicitors’ letter before claim, as we have not yet been granted permission to publish it).
At the heart of our case is a simple point: The Government is not legally entitled to reject the PHSO’s conclusions on injustice and its remedy proposals without “cogent reasons” (as explained by the courts in cases handled by our legal team such as R (Bradley) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and R (Equitable Members Action Group) v HM Treasury). The Government’s reasons are nowhere near good enough, we say. They are not cogent and many are not even rational. Some are new; the Government has only come up with them now, rather than during the PHSO investigation or even in the first rejection decision.
Our arguments are developed in the Grounds as follows:
· First, we say that the Government misunderstood the nature of the injustices identified by the PHSO. The PHSO had identified two related but distinct forms of injustice arising from the delayed state pension age notification letters: (i) the loss of opportunities to make informed decisions and act differently; and (ii) a loss of personal autonomy and financial control caused by not having been properly informed. We say the Government has ignored the second category altogether, despite it being well established in the PHSO’s guidance and widespread here; it has treated injustice as existing only where a 1950s-born woman can show that she would probably have acted differently had an earlier letter been sent. The PHSO report could not be clearer, however. For example, sample complainant Ms W’s case was treated by the PHSO as demonstrating that emotional injustice could arise even where additional notice could not realistically have enabled materially different financial choices to be made (and in any case, she considers she could have acted differently).
· Secondly, the Government’s argument that the PHSO lacked evidence for its conclusions is muddled, incoherent and irrational. The Government argues that the PHSO’s approach was “logically flawed” because many women would not in practice have read, retained or acted upon unsolicited letters. Yet the PHSO never assumed everyone would read and rely on letters. It recognised that individual circumstances varied and that not all women would necessarily have acted differently, though many would have.
· We also say the Government’s position is inconsistent with the DWP’s own historical evidence and decision-making. DWP research and ministerial submissions from 2006–2007 repeatedly identified low levels of awareness amongst affected women and concluded that targeted personalised letters were both necessary and likely to be effective. The DWP cannot coherently maintain, on the one hand, that failure to send earlier letters constituted maladministration and, on the other, that those same letters would probably have made little practical difference.
· Then there is the Government’s argument that women who knew in general terms that pension ages were changing ought reasonably to have investigated their own position. We say that mixes up general awareness of pensions policy changes with appreciation that our own pension ages had altered. The PHSO had found — consistently with the DWP’s own contemporaneous research — that many women understood that equalisation was occurring but simply did not realise that they themselves were affected. The DWP’s own actions — including extensive use of direct mail campaigns for pension communications — reinforced how reasonable it was for us to expect that important changes would be communicated personally.
· As to remedy, we say that the rejection of compensation necessarily falls with the unlawful rejection of injustice, but also that the Government overstated the financial implications of a compensation scheme.
Help us make sure these arguments are heard by a Judge and the Government is held to account for its excuse-mongering and evasion of responsibility for the injustice we have suffered.
Please donate now
Women Against State Pension Inequality
June 2, 2026
So what's happening with WASPI's judicial review?
Here’s a very quick update on what’s going on in the court system.
First, the Government has filed its ‘Summary Grounds of Defence’.
This lengthy document is actually not much of a ‘summary’ – it goes into huge detail about why our case should even get permission to proceed to a full hearing.
We think this is pretty disappointing. It’s clear we have an ‘arguable’ case and there is no ‘knockout blow’ that justifies permission being refused. We say that because we got permission in our last judicial review from a very senior Judge, Mr Justice Swift, and that last case overlaps with the new one. It would have been far better if the Government had consented to the case being heard so it could be resolved once and for all without fuss and delay. The Government would not agree this, though.
We have asked the Government to agree to its Summary Grounds of Defence being published. If it will not agree to that, then we will ask the Court to order that this happens, based on ‘open justice’ principles. We think WASPI women and the public should be able to see exactly how the Government is defending its position.
Meanwhile our lawyers have prepared a ‘Reply’ to the Summary Grounds of Defence which we will file later today. We believe we have good answers to the Government’s points.
The Ombudsman has also filed a powerful document - as she did during the last judicial review – explaining and defending her report,
All these papers will soon be put in front of another senior judge. She or he is likely to decide whether to give permission for the case to proceed once they have read everything through – hearings at this stage are rare.
Assuming permission is granted, soon afterwards we and our lawyers will be sent the internal Government decision-making records which show what Ministers were told and what options they considered before deciding there was hardly any injustice and no 1950s-born woman should be compensated, despite the Ombudsman’s report. We will then get a chance to respond.
Then, provided we have raised enough to carry on fighting it, our case will be prepared for a full hearing, probably between September and December. We will press for this to happen as soon as possible, of course.
A thank you from WASPI
As of this morning, more than 3500 WASPI supporters have dug deep to support us again and make our ongoing legal case possible.
We know that for every one of you, contributing involves going without or using precious savings.
We know we cannot guarantee you justice, only that we will fight for it as hard as we can.
And we and other 1950s-born women owe you huge thanks for getting us this far.
Please spread the word. Despite your generosity and commitment and the trust you have shown in us, we still need to raise more for the case. By standing together with our families, friends and supporters, WASPI women can have our day in court and make the Government answer to a Judge about its shameful response to the Ombudsman’s report.
Women Against State Pension Inequality
May 21, 2026
Why our fight is so costly and is taking so long and why we must not give up now
Challenging the Government is not easy. Unlike many WASPI women, the Government is not struggling to make ends meet. It has vast resources – civil servants, legal teams and experts - to defend its position.
The Ombudsman is supposed to level the playing field between citizen and state: by investigating independently, without the costs of court action, and reporting detailed conclusions and recommendations. The Government is then expected to respect those findings.
But so far this system has failed WASPI women. Despite the Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration and injustice after its longest and most complex investigation, the Government is using its resources to avoid accepting responsibility.
It is also adding insult to the injury of withholding compensation by claiming that we should have known our pension ages were changing and we should have discovered the details ourselves. It argues that even if letters with clear information about or changed pension ages had been sent earlier, we were unlikely to have read, remembered, or acted on them. In other words, it says we are responsible for our circumstances today, not the DWP.
This is unacceptable.
Our fight has been costly and long - and will continue to be. But we believe if we give up now, or just focus on campaigning, nothing will change. Worse still, this Government will feel vindicated and continue claiming there was no real injustice.
Campaigning alone will not change this Government’s mind. Our case is about forcing it to accept there is large scale injustice that it must grapple with. But there can be no case without money to pay our lawyers fairly and protect WASPI from the Government’s costs. So again, we need your support.
Why has the legal fight been so costly and long?
WASPI is run by volunteers and powered by campaigners. But we are not expert lawyers. In the courts we have had to fight fire with fire. There is no other alternative.
First, we challenged the Ombudsman for defining far too narrowly the injustice we have suffered. We won that challenge at an early stage and recovered most of our legal costs. We then paid our expert lawyers and used what was left over for legal advice on the next draft reports and making very detailed representations, repeatedly urging the Ombudsman to go further on injustice and compensation. There were some positive changes to the next draft report. We then had legal advice on whether to challenge the final one and decided to focus on getting the Ombudsman’s proposals implemented.
Then there was our second judicial review, this time against the Government tor irrationally rejecting the Ombudsman’s injustice findings and compensation proposals without rational or cogent reasons. The case was granted permission (so a Judge found all parts of it arguable), but it was settled days before the final hearing when the Government withdrew the decision we challenged so there was no longer a target.
By then, to drive the case forward, our lawyers had:
- considered over 5000 pages of documents, many of which had been gathered by the Ombudsman for its investigation;
- advised us, then distilled the legal arguments on rationality and reasons in a letter before claim;
- considered the Government’s response;
- prepared formal Grounds of Claim, witness evidence from us and a 2142-page bundle for the court;
- instructed an expert on survey methodology and had her prepare a report to demonstrate the flaws in the surveys the Government was relying on;
- applied to the Court to allow us to use this evidence;
- considered the Government’s Defence and responded to its arguments;
- liaised with the Ombudsman’s lawyers, who made supportive submissions;
- applied for a cost capping order limiting the cost each side would need to pay to the other if they lost;
- considered all the new evidence the Government then sent to us and the Court;
- successfully challenged the Government’s withholding of other important evidence, which was then sent;
- prepared and filed further witness statement evidence in response;
- filed evidence from a second supportive expert;
- prepared our legal arguments in writing, ready for trial;
- prepared the trial bundle and cross referenced everything to our legal arguments;
- prepared the documents required by the court for trial;
- considered the Government’s and our legal arguments for trial;
- advised us on the reconsideration announcement;
- prepared regular updates for us and WASPI members throughout;
- liaised with the interested parties (the Ombudsman and the test case complainants, the court and the Government’s lawyers throughout; and
- negotiated the settlement with the Government (which included reconsideration within a tight timetable) and payment of some of our legal costs.
The scale of the work was huge – but all these steps are unavoidable to take forward a judicial review like this one. For our solicitors alone, their work on the second judicial review the case took 782 hours and 12 minutes. Our barristers also put in many more hours between them to get us ready for trial last December.
This work was only possible because of the support we had from WASPI women and their supporters. Collectively, you contributed £289,568 for legal costs, leaving us with a war chest of about £270,000 after CrowdJustice and transaction fees.
In the settlement, we managed to recover £180,000 of our legal costs. This was twice the amount originally agreed under the cost capping agreement, but only about half our total legal costs, which were £364,506 including our experts’ and court fees.
We did not stand our lawyers down once the second case was over. Instead, we took advice from them on legal arguments to persuade the Government to change its position. These were summarised in our MPs’ briefing.
By 29 January 2026 when the Government’s next decision rejecting what the Ombudsman had held was made, we had £69,809 left in our fighting fund.
Why we must not give up. Not now.
We have come a long way from our initial DWP complaint-writing campaign.
We have the Ombudsman’s reports.
Maladministration has been accepted by the Government, despite its attempts to avoid responsibility for that.
We are now bringing our third judicial review, which is already underway, issued in court, explained in our new Grounds of Claim, supported by more up to date witness statements and a 5180 page bundle of evidence – at each stage the case becomes more complex. We are applying for a cost capping order to minimise the costs risk WASPI faces of having to pay the Government’s legal costs if we lose.
All of this work, along with all the advice we had from our lawyers on the strength of the challenge to the Government’s latest refusal decision, has been possible because of the £69,809 left in our fighting fund.
We may not win. The outcome of legal cases is never certain.
What we are certain of is our determination to hold the Government to account in court for its attempts to avoid accepting injustice and facing up to the consequences of that, including considering the Ombudsman’s recommendations properly.
But WASPI as an organisation cannot fight on alone.
As before, moving the legal case forward will be impossible without the support of the WASPI women at the heart of it. Without that support, we will have to withdraw because we cannot ask expert lawyers to work for nothing, nor risk bankrupting WASPI.
The money raised so far for our third judicial review will not be enough.
We would not ask if we did not have to. But we do have to ask you to support our latest judicial review, so the Government finally takes responsibility for the injustice the Ombudsman recognised and there is a chance of a proper, just response.
Please support us now. Donate here though CrowdJustice.
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