Pension age for 3.8 million women neglected by The Department for Work and Pensions

The Department for Work and Pensions has finally admitted that they have never given a thought to studying the effect of their decisions to raise the pension age from 60-66 for 3.8 million women. Their letter reads: “The Act does not oblige a public authority to create new information to answer questions; nor does it require a public authority to give advice, opinion or explanation, generate answers to questions, or create or obtain information it does not hold. If you ask a question, rather than requesting recorded information, we will provide you with the recorded information that best answers the question. Once we have provided the recorded information, we have met our obligations under the Act; interpreting the information provided is up to you. Your request makes statements and seeks to engage us in debate which you want us to respond to. This would need new information to be created.” The Department has released the White Paper that preceded the 1995 Pension Act and the impact statement the coalition government produced before implementing the 2011 Act which speeded up the rise. The statement also says, “We do not hold any recorded information of an impact assessment of the effects on women of the State Pension Age that informed the rises of 1995. However, you may find the following explanation useful. We have provided this outside our obligations under the FOI Act”.