Written evidence from Christopher Thompson (PHO 07)
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Scrutiny 2020-21 inquiry
My name is Christopher Thompson an ordinary member of the public who helped two friends take their cases to the Parliamentary Ombudsman because the DWP did not tell members of the public who reached state pension age on and after 6 April 2016 under the New State Pension (NSP) that they would no longer receive cost of living increases on part of their occupational pension known as Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP).
They took their cases to the Ombudsman in 2015 and the final reports were issued to them on 30 September 2019. A period of four years. The Ombudsman mentioned in the reports that the DWP was guilty of maladministration but did not tell Parliament or the Work and Pensions Committee. As far as I am aware they did not issue a press release about it either so the only people who knew about it were the two complainants, DWP and the Ombudsman.
In the report they suggested to the DWP that the reports were sent to the Work and Pensions Committee which the DWP did not do.
e) Consider, and report back to us, whether this report and their response to
our recommendations should be communicated to other interested parties
such as the Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee.
The Ombudsman did not bother to check up to see if the DWP sent the reports to the committee.
The committee did not find out about the DWP being found guilty of maladministration until I mentioned it to Stephen Timms not long after he became the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee. Not a very satisfactory way to find out from a member of the public that the DWP were found guilty of maladministration.
He asked the DWP to send him the reports which he did not receive until 28 August 2020 a period of 11 months after being asked to send them by the Ombudsman.
It looks as if the DWP had no intention of telling the Work and Pension Committee that they had been found guilty of maladministration and sending them the report.
This affects about 11 million people so am very surprised the Ombudsman did not tell Parliament. I don’t know why they were so secretive.
I can only come to the conclusion that during the course of the Ombudsman investigation they found out that the law might not have been changed about loss of GMP indexation and that they did not want anyone to know because if the law has not been changed. It could possibly cost the Government 20 billion pounds or more to pay the GMP indexation as laid down according to the law if the was not changed.
At a meeting I attended at the Ombudsman’s office on 26 September 2017 with the two complainants who got the maladministration against the DWP the PHSO explained the following.
The Ombudsman mentioned that they could not question the legality of the act. My friends were not questioning the legality of the act. All they were asking the ombudsman to do was find out where the change in law was mentioned that GMP indexation would not be paid under the New State Pension.
During the course of the investigation my friends asked the ombudsman to look at what was mentioned in the white paper and debated in parliament but they refused. We think they must have looked at it and what was debated in Parliament and could not find any mention of changing the law about GMP indexation being paid by the state.
We know they did look at the white paper as they mentioned in the report the following which contradicts what they say in the meeting notes mentioned above.
From reports 30 Sept 2019
ln 2011 and 2013 the government published its Green and White papers setting out proposals for pension reform. These included removing the basic and second state pensions by creating a single flat rate pension (the new State Pension).
The following comes from a covering letter dated 30 September 2019 sent at the same time as the reports. What it mentions is not true as they did look at what happened before it became law for inherited SERPs reduction without much warning which they have also done and is mentioned in the report for WASPI women where the DWP have been found guilty of maladministration again.
The big difference between my friends cases about loss of GMP indexation is at least the law was changed and debated in parliament and mentioned in the white papers about halving of inherited SERPS and change in state pension age but not so, for the loss of GMP indexation.
I get the feeling the law might not have been changed to cease paying GMP indexation via the state pension calculation because I could not see it mentioned in the white paper or debated in Parliament.
At one of the meetings I attended with the Ombudsman we were told by the Ombudsman that they could not look at the what the white paper said or did not say about loss of GMP indexation or what was debated in Parliament which seemed strange to us as we know from an Ombudsman report about halving of inherited SERPS in 2000 thy did and they also mentioned in the report that they did so we knew what they were saying was not correct. They said they could only look at what happened after it had become law in May 2014 which was just two years before it became law on 6 April 2016.
This was also mentioned in the covering letters dated 30 September 2019 sent out with the reports
The ombudsman has recently done a report about WASPI women not having ample warning about changes in women’s state pension, where they mentioned that they did look at the white paper and what was said in parliament so contradicting what was said at our meeting.
We could not understand how they could do an investigation about loss of GMP not being mentioned or not, about loss of GMP indexation without first finding out what the white paper said or did not say and what was debated in Parliament and if the law was changed, otherwise how could they mention DWP was guilty of maladministration for not mentioning loss of GMP indexation if they did not know what the law said.
I personally think the law about GMP indexation was not changed so the DWP might have stopped paying it without the law being changed and the Ombudsman have colluded with the DWP to hide from Parliament and the Public that the law may not have been changed.
My friends were also told by the Ombudsman that they would make sure the DWP did what was requested of them in the report. As it turns out they did not and were supposed to hand it over to the Work and Pensions Committee in November 2020 by just copying in the Committee but as far as I can see not asking the Committee to supervise the approval of the fact sheet that was to appear on GOV.UK website which it finally did. I don’t think the Ombudsman contacted Stephen Timms to ask him if he and his committee would oversee the approval of the fact sheet to appear on GOV.UK website.
The reason I know this is because I have copies of correspondence from the Ombudsman to a friend of mine who was one of the complainants that they copied in the work and pensions committee in correspondence sent to the DWP.
Email dated 1 December 2020 to my friend.
In order to draw matters to a close, DWP have however agreed to:
Ensure the factsheet properly conveys the potential for significant financial impact
Undertake user tests of this communication with relevant group of those
Affected / those that have knowledge of GMPs
Amend the factsheet accordingly following the results of user testing
Share the results of the testing and updated factsheet with the Work and Pensions Select Committee.
“The Work and Pensions Committee have been and continue to monitor DWP’s actions on this particular matter. The last sentence was not true as they did not know if the Committee were monitoring DWPs actions. In particular, we have copied the Work and Pensions Committee into our recent correspondence with DWP. We consider this is the appropriate route to ensure DWP’s accountability for future communications on pension related matters. The only problem with that, the Committee never receive it and the Ombudsman never checked up to see if what they mentioned was being carried out by the Work and Pensions Committee.
For the reasons above, we have now closed your case.”
In email to my friend dated 26 April 2021 five months after the ombudsman mentioned they had contacted the Committee they confirmed that they had to send it again five months later.
“I can confirm we told the Select Committee about our decision to close compliance
and the next actions for DWP on 30 November 2020. However, in light of your
recent correspondence, we have resent that letter to the Select Committee.”
As you can see the ombudsman did not check with the Committee to see if they had received the ombudsman correspondence to them which I think was only being copied in to correspondence not being written to.
This is confirmed in an email to me from Stephen Timms, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee dated 17 May 2021.
Dear Christopher,
Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me about the PHSO’s decision to close its GMP compliance case.
Unfortunately, at the time, we did not receive a copy of the letter sent to the Committee about the PHSO’s decision. We only became aware of it recently.
They only became aware because the Ombudsman recent the letter as mentioned above.
The DWP were asked in the reports to
c) Within three months of this report, review and report back on to us on the
Learning from this investigation, please notice the following mentions receive appropriate communication and not just find out by chance if they happen to see it on GOV.UK web site including action being taken to ensure
that affected individuals receive appropriate communication from the
DWP about their state pensions. ln particular, the DWP should ensure that
their literature clearly and appropriately references that some
individuals, who have large GMPs and reach State Pension Age in the early
years of the new State Pension, may be negatively affected by the
changes. The DWP should advise individuals to check their circumstances,
and should provide instructions for how to do this;
d) Within three months of this report, review and report back about how
other individuals who believe they have suffered an injustice as a result of
the maladministration we have found can raise any concerns with the DWP
and have them considered;
I also have correspondence from the Ombudsman that mentions the fact sheet should be tested on people affected who have knowledge about GMP indexation which the DWP deliberately did not do and went out of their way to contact 40 people who did not understand GMP indexation of which only 7 replied and took part in discussions and testing of the new fact sheet.
GUARANTEED MINIMUM PENSION (GMP) INDEXATION In my letter to you of 28 May 2021 I reported on the progress we had made on implementing the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's (PHSO) recommendations on their investigation on behalf of two complaints about the way the Department communicated the change in GMP indexation policy. I mentioned in my letter that the factsheet was being prepared to meet two recommendations PHSO had made on (1) explaining the policy change in a straightforward way and (2) giving others who may have felt the same injustice as that reported by PHSO the opportunity to come forward. I also mentioned that on 9 November 2020 PHSO had asked that the factsheet be User Tested and that the factsheet and the results of the User Testing be sent onto the Committee. The User Testing report, with the factsheet shown on pages 2 to 4, is attached to this letter.
Email from Ombudsman to 1 December 2020
In order to draw matters to a close, DWP have however agreed to:
Ensure the factsheet properly conveys the potential for significant financial impact
Undertake user tests of this communication with relevant group of those
affected/those that have knowledge of GMPs
Amend the factsheet accordingly following the results of user testing
Share the results of the testing and updated factsheet with the Work and Pensions Select Committee.
I don’t think the Ombudsman Office did their job properly to produce the reports where the DWP were found guilty of maladministration because of their refusal to look at what the white paper mentioned, what was debated in Parliament or what the law said when they did for their investigations for halving of inherited SERPS in 2000 and change in state pension age for the WASPI women which proves they were not telling the truth.
I would like to complain about the Ombudsman for the following reasons.
1) The time taken to produce the report about loss of GMP indexation which was over 4 years when the managed to produce reports about halving of inheritance of SERPs and change in state pension age for the WASPI women in roughly a year.
2) Refusal to mention in their reports that the two complainants had mentioned the DWP deliberately did not mentioned loss of GMP indexation in legislation to Parliament so it could be debated in Parliament.
3) Refusal to look at white paper to see if it mentioned loss of GMP indexation was mentioned.
4) Refusal to look to see if it was debated in Parliament.
5) Refusal to see if the law was changed or not.
6) Accepting the DWPS word that they did not pay GMP indexation which they did which is proved by the ombudsman doing the reports.
7) Factual mistakes in the reports which they would not change even though they were pointed out to them before they produced their reports on 30 September 2019 on several occasions.
8) Not following up on their report and leaving it to the Work and pensions to sort out without asking Stephen Timms if he would be willing to take over.
9) Not asking Stephen Timms first to see if his committee would take over compliance of what was mentioned at end of the two reports.
10) Just copying him on correspondence that he did not receive.
11) Not checking up to see if he had received their correspondence.
12) Stephen Timms only finds out that he was supposed to be taking over from the Ombudsman when I told him several months later.
13) The Ombudsman only finding out that Stephen Timms had not received their correspondence when my friend one of the complainants mentioned it to them because I told him Stephen Timms had told me his Committee had not received their correspondence about taking over from Ombudsman regarding compliance.
14) Not insisting DWP write to everyone affected as mentioned in the reports and leaving it to happen chance for the public to find out about loss of GMP indexation from GOV.UK web site which is highly unlikely unless they know what they are looking for especially as it affects about 11 million people.
15) Allowing the DWP to test the fact sheet only on people who did not have any knowledge of GMP indexation when they were asked by the Ombudsman to test it on people affected with knowledge of GMP indexation which the DWP did agree to but did not carry out. Because of this they would not have asked any awkward questions.
16) Allowed the fact sheet to be issued on 12 August 2021 without it being approved by the Ombudsman or Work and pensions Committee.
17) Allowing the DWP to take almost two years to produce the fact sheet after the reports were issued on 30 September 2019.
18) Allowing the DWP to mention on the fact sheet information not relevant to not paying GMP indexation such as
19) How you could build up more pension under new State Pension
20) New State Pension adjustments for living costs. As they had nothing to do with not mentioning GMP indexation loss. Just trying to justify not mentioning the loss of GMP indexation and red herrings.
21) Not mentioning on fact sheet that they had been found guilty of maladministration by the ombudsman and that people could be entitled to compensation.
22) No mention of how big the loss of GMP indexation could be which for a woman with maximum GMP if indexation was say 3% could be about £27,000as calculate by Government Actuary in report produce by treasury about public service schemes taking over GMP indexation on and after 6 April 2016 because GMP indexation was not going to be paid by the DWP.
October 2021