Tag Archives: rob behrens

Dishonorable gongs: Do the former Parliamentary Ombudsman and Permanent Secretary at the DWP deserve their knighthoods?

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Now Sir Rob Behrens

Sir Peter Schofield

The King’s Birthday Honours List contains many eminent people from artist Tracey Emin to the not so well known Lord Etherton KC, a retired judge, who compiled a meticulous ground breaking report in 2023 into the disgraceful and inhumane treatment of gay people in the military prior to the lifting of the ban in 2000.

But there are two people who simultaneously received knighthoods which are open to question. They are Robert Behrens, the retiring Parliamentary Ombudsman and Peter Schofield, the current permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Both were at opposite ends over the huge controversy over whether 3.6 million people born in the 1950s should get restitution for maladministration and discrimination over the six year delay in getting their pensions.

Robert Behrens was responsible for compiling a report on whether there was maladministration ( his remit did not have to consider discrimination) over the ministry’s handling of the delay. It was the Ombudsman’s biggest report and he took years to do it, awarded only partial maladministration, and funked giving an award because of ministry opposition, leaving MPs to have to decide whether they get any money.

Peter Schofield was in charge of the department, which was not only totally opposed to giving them a penny, but under his leadership put in a submission to the Ombudsman exonerating his ministry, saying it not made even one mistake, should not be questioned by MPs about it, and further the 3.6 million seeking any money were likely to be fraudsters putting in false claims.

Let down 3.6 million women

Both of them let down 3.6 million law abiding women safe in the knowledge that sooner or later most of them would be dead. But for the government of the day, this was manna from heaven, saving them billions of pounds owed to the women, on top of inevitable pay outs to contaminated blood victims and sub postmasters. I suspect the fact that they were elderly women, who wouldn’t blockade the roads or disrupt public life like Extinction Rebellion and unlikely to be sprightly enough to climb on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s house in protest, was also a factor in their calculations.

No wonder a grateful Establishment would reward those who saved them a lot of money. Of course there is no mention of this in the citations given for the awards, which would add insult to injury. Instead it is tactfully avoided and the awards are for other matters.

For Rob Behrens, and this was emphasised in a tweet on X from his office, the award is more for his role as Health Service Commissioner. He has been outspoken about the toxic culture inside the NHS when patients complain, and in a report called Broken Trust was critical of clinical failings and the way some trusts acted in handling complaints. He followed this up with a letter to the Department for Health jointly with Henrietta Hughes, the Patient Safety Commissioner demanding a fundamental change in NHS culture from a combative to a restorative approach in handling complaints and ensuring there was a patient’s voice on the trust’s executive.

The Ombudsman’s press office reaction to his handling of the 50s women’s case was: “We have set out our findings following a robust, thorough and detailed investigation regarding how changes to the State Pension Age were communicated. It is now for Parliament to take forward and intervene to hold the Department for Work and Pensions to account and provide woman affected with the quickest route to remedy.” I’ll leave you to judge whether that is an adequate explanation.

34 years spent by the DWP producing inaccurate accounts

Now the award to Peter Schofield has to be taken against the background of the ministry’s 34 years of failure to produce accurate accounts because it cannot produce accurate figures on benefits. It is the worst performance across Whitehall and is regularly criticised by the National Audit Office who audit their accounts. According to the citation his award is for the speedy delivery of benefits, especially during the pandemic and for a culture encouraging innovation. I have asked the department to spell out what this means but have had no reply to date.

I notice the delivery of pensions is not cited as a reason to give him a knighthood. This is hardly surprising since the ministry is in the middle of having to pay out millions of pounds to existing pensioners, mainly women again, who have been shortchanged because of the ministry’s mistakes in calculating them. It also has a history of not wanting to implement decisions from the Ombudsman in anything but the most rudimentary way such as over the guaranteed minimum pension .

So do both of them deserve a knighthood? I think the handling of the 50swomen pensions fiasco should have been a factor in NOT awarding one because of the huge number of people who have so far ,been left with nothing. To be fair, Rob Behrens, has been outspoken as Health Services Commissioner, but I have noticed when handling complaints himself, he has been more cautious in his findings.

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50s women are back to Square One after the Parliamentary Ombudsman “cops out” of awarding them a penny

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Rob Behrens departing Parliamentary Commissioner

Today’s report from Robert Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, is one of the most underwhelming publications ever to come from a public figure asked to redress a major injustice.

After toiling over his report for some seven years all he can produce is a mouse of a publication which leaves some 3.5 million women born in the 1950s having to fight their corner all over again to get compensation for waiting six more years to get their pension.

We should have known it was likely to be lacklustre after his first preliminary report conceded only “partial maladministration ” for the way the Department for Work and Pensions failed to communicate with the women about the long wait they would have to get their pensions. This immediately lowered the amount of compensation he might award at the end – ruling out the highest level. And WASPI under Angela Madden, were totally stupid not to challenge this at the time, particularly as evidence emerged during the judicial review brought by the ” Back to 60 ” campaign that the DWP’s own civil servants had urged the then secretary of state, Peter now Lord Lilley, to run a campaign to tell the women as long ago as 1997. They knew the women hadn’t realised the implications.

Spurious objections from the DWP

Now today’s report completely ducks the issue, make no recommendation for an award and caves into spurious objections from the DWP that it is either too costly to find the people affected or too costly to pay out. Given the DWP know the details of every pensioner bank account as they have to pay them every month, this is plain ridiculous. At least he spared them the other claim from the DWP that some of the 50s women were fraudsters if they put in a claim. No doubt this civil servant who wrote this relished prosecuting and jailing these elderly women like the managers who led the Post Office pursued the sub postmasters.

There is some guidance in his report which appears to suggest he might have thought giving them a range of compensation from £1000 each to £2900 but there is no detailed mechanism of how this could be done.

And as for asking Parliament to decide, the big question is how? For start there is no agreement on the level of compensation. Is it the £1000 – £2900 hinted by the Ombudsman ? Is it the £10,000 promised by Angela Madden and the All Party Parliamentary Group on this issue? Should it be the £58 billion that the former Labour chancellor, John McDonnell, promised during Labour’s last election campaign?Or should it be full restitution of all the money promised by CEDAWinLAW, which could end up with some getting over £40,000. There is plenty of space for everyone to disagree and delay.

What is the mechanism that will force the DWP to give into demands from Parliament? The answer is that there is none. Angela Madden today was spectacularly naive in thinking that is is wonderful that Parliament will decide.

Parliament controlled by Government whips

For a start the Parliamentary agenda is almost totally controlled by Government whips. And do people really think the government, which opposes paying anything, is going to make Government time available to debate something they don’t want to hear? Also Labour may be reluctant to use one of its Opposition days to debate the issue because it would force them to declare their hand and then be subject to barrage of attacks from the Tories claiming everybody’s taxes were to go up to pay these women? Only the Scottish National Party could risk calling a debate as the bill falls on Westminster not Holyrood.

A backbencher could put up a motion but I gather this would not be binding on the DWP who would safely ignore it.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman, who retires this week, could have given a clear uncompromising lead on what could have been done but flunked it. Frankly if I read the Jerusalem Post correctly he has give more uncompromising support to the Israeli government’s bombing of Gaza than he has defending the rights of cheated pensioners in this country.

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MPs call again for reform of the antiquated Parliamentary Ombudsman – but ignore the plight of 50swomen

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William Wragg MP: official Portrait

Also ” Ombudsman friend “of Rob Behrens facing a corruption hearing in Australia

MPs today publish their official annual scrutiny of the work of the Parliamentary Ombudsman but what it doesn’t say is more important than what it says.

The committee call again – this time for a manifesto commitment from all political parties – to reform the 57 year old Ombudsman legislation – to give the Ombudsman and Health Service Commissioner more clout and powers to ensure his or her recommendations are implemented This follows the blank refusal of this government to take any action to do so. Michael Gove when he was in the Cabinet Office ruled out even a draft bill.

In a desperate plea the chairman, Tory William Wragg, who is also quitting at the election, says:

“As we have done annually for many years now to no avail, we are once again calling on the Government to bring forward what is now very long-overdue legislative reform of the PHSO, so that it can provide the level of service the public requires from it.

“Given the necessity of PHSO reform, we urge all political parties to include a commitment to reforming the legislation relating to the PHSO in their election manifestos ahead of the next General Election.”

Whether the Tories will commit to this must be unlikely since it suits the present government, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, and to some extent the NHS, to have a weak Ombudsman who can be safely ignored if they don’t like what he says.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office has welcomed the committee’s statement:

“We are pleased to see the Committee’s support for reform of our outdated legislative framework and their call for Government to reconsider its position and consult with stakeholders ahead of the General Election. We agree with their sentiment that reform has been ‘neglected’, is ‘long overdue’, and that ‘further delay is no longer tenable’. 

The rest of the report seems a mixture of praise and criticism over the Ombudsman’s performance. He is praised for dealing with a backlog of complaints that followed the Covid 19 pandemic but criticised for the way he didn’t handle well complaints affecting the elderly and the disabled.

Rob Behrens, retiring Parliamentary Ombudsman

But there were two huge elephants in the room missing in the report. Retiring Ombudsman Robert Behrens when he faced MPs had to spend a good part of the session facing criticism from MPs of the huge and unprecedented delay in publishing his report on the plight of 50swomen – some of them WASPI supporters – and recommending compensation for maladminstration in the six year delay in getting their state pension. Indeed his report is taking longer than the actual delay in getting their pensions.

Yet from today’s report you would think this never happened. There is not one word in the report acknowledging this. All there is a footnote referring to the WASPI evidence while the evidence from CEDAWinLAW does not even merit that.

Yet any reader of this blog knows the present draft recommends NO compensation for the women leaving it up to MPs in Parliament to debate whether women should get a penny.

This is more outrageous given that over 500 people know what it says and practically every sitting MP knows the outcome but most are happy to participate in a conspiracy of silence hoping it will go away. WASPI is playing the same game and one is beginning to wonder whether they want to get any money at all.

The other missing information is who is going to be new Ombudsman. The committee inadvertently published the letter sent to the Cabinet Office from Sir Alex Allen, once adviser to David Cameron and Boris Johnson until he resigned, and now a member of the Parliamentary Ombudsman Board – see my blog here– asking for a speedy decision from Rishi Sunak to replace Rob Behrens. Now it is nearly a month since I wrote about this and nothing has happened. The Cabinet Office appears not to have replied.

Yet they have only until March 27 – when Parliament goes into Easter recess – to fix up a meeting to approve the appointment of a successor. Even if the board appoints an acting ombudsman under the 1967 legislation it would still need Parliamentary approval by the committee, I am told.

Rob Behrens also had strong links with the various international organisations – a couple of which have been hit by scandals.

A war crime and a corruption scandal

Josef Ziegele, the European Ombudsman Institute ‘s general secretary, was behind the alleged deportation of two Ukrainian refugee children from Austria to Russia which could be a war crime according to the Kyiv Independent which led to other Ombudsmen, including Rob Behrens resigning from it last April.

The president of the International Ombudsman Institute, Chris Field, who is the Western Australia state Parliamentary ombudsman, is apparently a good friend of Rob Behrens. But at the moment Field is at the centre of corruption hearings in Western Australia over his huge annual travel expenses of $266,000 Australian dollars (£136,840) and for subsidising his organisation through money allocated from Australian taxpayers.

At a visit to Ukraine in 2022 Mr Field heaped praise on Mr Behrens saying “I am deeply grateful to my good friend and colleague Rob Behrens CBE, IOI Vice President Europe, who joined me on this visit. He is a person of utter integrity, searching intellect and profoundly good values. He came to Ukraine. He lives his values” .

He also put a submission to the PACAC saying: ” He is counted as a wise mentor and friend by me and so many of his colleagues around the world. Ombudsman Behrens has not just transformed the office of the PHSO into one of the world’s leading Ombudsman offices, he has made a contribution to the IOI and the institution of the Ombudsman globally of inestimable value. It is of some note that I was accompanied by only one Ombudsman on my visit to Ukraine in December in 2022, namely Ombudsman Behrens. He distinguished his office and his country during this visit.”

The annual report of his Ombudsman’s report for West Australia revealed Field had visited Taiwan, China, Ukraine, Britain, the US, Slovenia, Thailand, Austria, Morocco, France, Russia, Poland and Hungary.  Just prior to his visit to Ukraine, the IOI president met with the Australian Ambassador to Poland Lloyd Brodrick, and the Australian Ambassador to Ukraine Bruce Edwards in Poland. 

Chris Field, Western Australia Ombudsman

During the first tranche of the corruption hearings against him ( they resume mid March) it was revealed that he decided to end rules disclosing gifts he had received on foreign trips by raising the disclosure limit from around £25 to £125. It was revealed that he planned to give the OECD in Paris from Australian taxpayers funds , over $213,000 (about £107,000) for a project concerning, ‘the role of Ombudsman institutions in building a culture of open government for stronger and more resilient communities.’ The first invoice from OECD of half the cash was blocked by the Ombudsman’s chief finance officer.

He also ordered his office to pay for a private limousine to take him from the Paris Hilton to the OECD headquarters because he said taxis were difficult to find in Paris.

It was said he was only in the office for two days out of ten because of all these world trips and he designated other people to take operational decisions.

Behrens stands with Israel

MPs in today’s report praise the Ombudsman for seeking co-operation with international organisations. It also discloses that the Parliamentary Ombudsman is working closely to co-operate with Israel’s Ombudsman.

So closely that Matanyahu Englman, Israel’s Ombudsman requested both Chris Field and Rob Behrens to issue a statement by the International Ombudsman Institute giving unqualified support to Israel to fight HAMAS.

Chris Field obliged saying: “There can be no false moral equivalences in the lawful and correct response of Israel to those who came to slaughter the Jewish people,” in a letter to Israel’s State Comptroller and Ombudsman Matanyahu Englman. “No international body should be allowed to falter in their resolve to eradicate a body that actually pays their members to kill Jews. There can be no peace in the Middle East while terrorism and undemocratic representation of the peoples of Gaza seek to eliminate the Jewish people.”

See the Jerusalem Post article here for the full story.

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Exclusive:Rishi Sunak delays appointment of new Parliamentary Ombudsman and throws the organisation into crisis

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Sir Alex Allan, board member of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Pic credit: BBC

Email from Sir Alex Allan revealing problem removed from Parliamentary website after I made a press inquiry

Parliament and the Health Service will not have a new permanent Ombudsman from April because the Prime Minister has delayed approving a new replacement who anyway cannot start work at the office because he or she has to give notice to leave their present job.

Details of the crisis at the office are revealed in an email sent on January 29 from Sir Alex Allan, a senior non executive member of the board of the Ombudsman’s office, to William Wragg, Tory chair of the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC).

Sir Alex is a former high flying civil servant who chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee, and was the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards until 2020 when he resigned after Boris Johnson refused to accept his report on Priti Patel, the former home secretary, concluding that her behaviour was bullying.

The email pleads with William Wragg to contact Downing Street to resolve the problem as a matter of urgency.

His email warns:

“As a corporation sole, the organisation cannot operate without an Ombudsman in post. Any delay to the appointment puts the organisation at considerable risk. In particular because key casework decisions could not be taken it puts at risk all of the work to reduce the queue and improve service to complainants. Clarity of the timeline for both the permanent and interim Ombudsman
appointments is therefore pressing.”

A pre-appointment hearing - part of the normal appointment process - had been pencilled in by PACAC to quiz the new Ombudsman but that has been pit back and there is no date for a future hearing. The page announcing the future hearing on the website is now blank.

He goes on: “”I am pleased that the Panel, led by Philippa Helme, has identified a preferred candidate but I am concerned about the apparent delays since then. We have yet to receive confirmation that the preferred candidate has been agreed by the Prime Minister. “

Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive at the PHSO

Sir Alex says the board’s preferred solution is to appoint an interim Ombudsman and suggests Rebecca Hilsenrath, the current chief executive who moved there from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, would be the ideal candidate.

But Whitehall has not even approved this. He writes: “We have yet to receive confirmation of this, despite the urgency, which is making it difficult for the organisation to properly plan for leadership change.”

The crisis facing the Ombudsman’s Office raises a whole of questions which I tried to put to them.

This includes questions like whether Rebecca Hilsenrath, if appointed as an interim, will be able to announce case decisions affecting complaints about hospitals and the NHS, or will they have to wait until they have a permanent appointment?

From Sir Alex’s letter it is also clear if neither people are approved by Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, the office would cease to function altogether until this was sorted out.

The impasse could also affect the timing of the publication of the final report by the outgoing Ombudsman, Rob Behrens, on maladministration in 50s women’s delayed pensions. WASPI have been waiting years for its publication and have seen the draft report which has already been leaked on this website. See the blog here.

A PHSO spokesperson said:

“The process to appoint a new Ombudsman is ongoing. We are in discussions about interim arrangements should they be needed. Our important service for the public continues.”

A spokesperson for PACAC said the committee could not comment but the original pre appointment hearing had been scheduled for last month but because they had not had confirmation from the Cabinet Office that the government had approved the appointment no date was fixed. The email should not have published on their website which is why it was taken down. This suggests that Rishi Sunak has been delaying a decision to approve the appointment for weeks.

For those interested the text of the email is published below:

From the Senior Non-Executive, Sir Alex Allan KCB
Sent by Email Only: pacac@parliament.uk
29 January 2024
Dear Mr Wragg,
I am writing to convey my concerns about the slippage in the timetable to appoint a new
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) and to ask for your support, as Chair of the
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, in raising these concerns with No 10.
I am pleased that the Panel, led by Philippa Helme, has identified a preferred candidate but I am
concerned about the apparent delays since then. We have yet to receive confirmation that the
preferred candidate has been agreed by the Prime Minister. That meant that the planned preappointment scrutiny hearing had to be cancelled and has not been refixed.
I am aware that, due to the preferred candidate’s notice period, there will be a need to appoint an
interim Ombudsman and that the view remains that this should be Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief
Executive Officer at PHSO. We have yet to receive confirmation of this, despite the urgency, which
is making it difficult for the organisation to properly plan for leadership change.
As a corporation sole, the organisation cannot operate without an Ombudsman in post. Any delay to
the appointment puts the organisation at considerable risk. In particular because key casework
decisions could not be taken it puts at risk all of the work to reduce the queue and improve service
to complainants. Clarity of the timeline for both the permanent and interim Ombudsman appointments is therefore pressing,

I have written to Baroness Neville-Rolfe to convey these concerns and I would be grateful if you
would consider raising them with the Prime Minister’s office.
Yours sincerely,
Sir Alex Allan
Senior Non-Executive Director

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Powerless Parliamentary Ombudsman lashes out at “command and control” NHS

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Rob Behrens Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman

Last week was Whistleblower Awareness Week and Whistleblowers UK and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing organised a two day event in Parliament on issues affecting whistleblowing.

I attended the two hour session aptly entitled Whistleblowing in Health care – a Lesson in Futility? It drew a wide selection of people from the UK and the Isle of Man including doctors, lawyers, judges, nurses and speak up guardians

These included Dr Chris Day , who has been fighting Lewisham and Greenwich Health Trust for ten years after reporting two avoidable deaths in the intensive care unit at Woolwich Hospital and Martyn Pitman, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, who recently lost a case against Hampshire Hospitals Trust, reporting patient safety issues after a mother died giving birth in one of their hospitals. Both cases can be found in a series of articles on my blog.

But one of the most striking contributions came from Rob Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman – an Establishment figure – and the Health Service Commissioner more familiar to my readers over the debacle in getting compensation for 3.5 million 50swomen who faced a six year delay in getting their pension.

In a short powerful speech he rightly lambasted the culture inside the NHS which is leading to the failure, ,persecution and character assassination of whistleblowing doctors and nurses who report patient safety issues.

Describing the system in the NHS as “command and control”, he described the contrast between the management of trusts boasting to him how open their institutions were only to find the opposite when he talked to people lower down the food chain dealing with the complaints.

He pleaded for a more ” collegiate NHS” where managers and staff worked together rather than against each other. he wanted ” fundamental change” in the leadership of the NHS.

But his speech also revealed how impotent his role is in handling healthcare issues. He pointed out that the Ombudsman was handicapped by outdated legislation, couldn’t deal with staff issues unlike other Ombudsmen, was unable to take any initiatives himself, and couldn’t force the NHS to make changes even he wanted them to do so. None of this does his reputation with the public any good. I have only covered one of his cases. You can read about it here. Health warning it is a very grim story and the Ombudsman could only partially investigate it.

Northern Ireland Ombudsman has greater powers

How he must envy Margaret Kelly, the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, set up under more modern legislation, who has and uses her powers to initiate investigations. A report here on my blog shows how she took on private company Capita and its failure to treat disabled people properly applying for Personal Independence Payments.

At the moment plans to get a new law to protect whistleblowers ( they are also covered by outdated legislation which trusts can use lawyers to get round its provisions) is stalled. So is any legislation to give the Parliamentary Ombudsman fresh powers or rationalise the plethora of other ombudsmen in this country. I suggested one step that could be taken in election year would be for whistleblowers to press the major parties to include a pledge to legislate in their manifestos. There is an “oven ready” bill already by Whistleblowers UK to reform the system which could be the basis for fresh change. It is time we ended talking and took some action.

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Exclusive: Parliamentary Ombudsman dodges recommending any maladministration compensation for 3.5 million 50s women

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Rob Behrens, Parliamentary Ombudsman Pic Credit: PHSO website

Ombudsman capitulates to DWP intransigence NOT to pay a penny and leaves it to MPs to decide

In what must be the most extraordinary provisional decision by any Parliamentary Ombudsman Rob Behrens has decided NOT to make any recommendations for compensation for maladministration he found affecting 3.5 million 50s born women who had to wait an extra six years for their pensions.

Some details of his confidential letter sent out to Waspi, MPs, the test case complainants and 500 other pensioners have leaked out and show basically the Ombudsman has , in my words.” kopped out ” of his job to compensate people wronged by public bodies. This is after spending six years – with various breaks – investigating the issue.

The letter reveals that the Department for Work and Pensions has put enormous pressure on the Ombudsman not to award anything by telling him before he has completed his final report they have no intention of paying it.

These are the key paragraphs:

The official Ombudsman website says the aim is to publish this as a final report in March.

So what are the repercussions if this goes ahead? It obviously means it would go to Parliament which would have to have a debate and a vote on various levels of compensation. But the Parliamentary agenda is largely in the hands of the government and government whips. The government still has a large majority and Rishi Sunak, the PM, has shown little, if any, interest in this issue. All the government has to do is put down a motion saying the DWP doesn’t want to pay any of the women and whip Tory MPs to vote for it.

There might be a small rebellion by Tories but not enough to defeat it. It is by no means certain that Labour would support it, despite the former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell promising £58 billion to settle this issue. Labour seeing itself in power later next year would not necessarily be keen on paying a multi billion package to the women when faced with a tight spending constraints.

The other extraordinary result of such a provisional decision is that this is a bitter blow to Waspi, who went down the Parliamentary Ombudsman route. The have raised huge sums of money from these women – all it turns out for nothing. They are still running a crowd funder – supposedly for a judicial review into the Ombudsman’s decision. They capitulated at the court door- going for the Ombudsman to rewrite his findings. Well he has now, and recommends they get nothing. Should they continue to raise money now it could be seen as fleecing their supporters as they now have nowhere to go.

The only bright light in this terrible situation is that CEDAWinLAW has now raised all the £15,000 it needs for lawyers to go ahead to work out a strategy to bring a Group Class action against the DWP. Since it looks like the only thing that could make the DWP listen is a court decision, this is the only avenue left.

But there is something worse in the Ombudsman’s provisional decision. Should it go to a vote in Parliament and Parliament votes to give them nothing, that is the end of the matter. Parliament is supreme and even the courts have to bow to Parliament. In other words, the Ombudsman’s decision, however he likes to dress it up, condemns 3.5 million mainly poor pensioners to go to their graves without a penny in compensation. Some friend of the oppressed indeed.

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50s women: Waspi getting nowhere with the Parliamentary Ombudsman who announces he plans to quit

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Rob Behrens, Parliamentary Commissioner to stand down in March.

Promise of an early resolution for the £3.6 million 50s born women to get compensation for their delayed pensions appear to have been dashed with no movement from the Parliamentary Ombudsman to solve the problem.

Despite a court agreement in May to revise the final report on compensation for the women to correct what Waspi calls the Ombudsman’s “legally flawed” decision to award minimum compensation for the women who have lost up to £50,000 by the six year delay they faced when the pension age was raised from 60 to 66, nothing has happened. Waspi has raised £147,500 from the public for a judicial review of the decision which never happened.

Angela Madden, chair of Waspi

The Waspi statement in May was very confident the organisation could hold Robert Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s feet to the fire and get great concessions for the women. At a Labour Party Conference meeting last year, Angela Madden, chair of Waspi, said she would expect women to get £10,000 a year compensation. See my blog here.

What a contrast with the downbeat statement a few days ago.

“”WASPI are disappointed and frustrated by the length of time that the Ombudsman is taking to rewrite his Second Report on the injustices cause by DWP maladministration. The Court Order requiring that reconsideration was sealed on 12 May 2023. It is unclear precisely what has been done since then.

” We can confirm that neither we nor, as far as we are aware, any of the sample complainants have been contacted to comment on a draft, or on anything new that the Ombudsman has gathered from the DWP. That opportunity to comment is guaranteed by the Court Order, which suggests that finalisation of the report is still some way off.”

In desperation Waspi have got their lawyers, Bindman’s, to write to the Ombudsman. But as their statement says:

 “We have not had the courtesy of a reply. We also have asked for a meeting with William Wragg MP, the Chair of the  Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC), to whom the Ombudsman reports. That meeting has yet to take place.”

Failure to reply is quite common from the Ombudsman’s Office. BackTo60, who have repeatedly told the Ombudsman that he should have to consider whether the failure to compensate the women is in breach of international agreements signed by the UK government which ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),.

Dr Jocelynne Scutt

This argument is particular powerful following the report by Dr Jocelynne Scutt, the former Australian anti discrimination commissioner and judge, which found it was in breach of CEDAW and was clearly discriminatory against the 50swomen.

Now while it might be convenient for the government and the Ombudsman to pretend this report doesn’t exist, the findings are being taken seriously by the committee implementing the convention in Geneva who have to do a report to the UN on Britain’s compliance with it. Given the Ombudsman’s public pride of his role on the international scene with other Ombudsmen his reputation could easily be sullied if he is found to have ignored an international convention.

But perhaps he doesn’t care. The other major development while Waspi was awaiting his report is that he is to step down from the job next March. He announced this in his annual report published on July 20 which he said was his valedictory report.

This means when Parliament comes back in September the emphasis will switch to finding a successor, drawing up a short list and having the new Ombudsman’s appointment scrutinised and approved by Parliament via the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

What should worry Waspi, which chose to go down this route, is there must be a temptation to delay his findings so his successor has to sort it out. Also even if he does come out with his findings before he leaves, it will be up to his successor to persuade the government to implement them. Given by then Parliament will be engulfed with preparations to fight the next general election, the government might be tempted to push it into the long grass or make vague promises in the hope of garnering votes.

The annual report provides some interesting facts and figures on the operation of the Ombudsman’s Office. A table reveals who uses it showing more women than men complain to the Ombudsman and the main age groups are between 35 and 74 and 84 per cent are white.

The report also reveals disabled people are heavily reliant on it. When one looks at the breakdown of the board however, there is not a single person with experience of a disability on it, which means the disabled have no voice at the top of the organisation. The board has one gay member and three people from ethnic minorities.

The organisation fares well in the employment of women both among its staff and the board as 59 per cent of staff and 58 per cent of the board are women. Disabled people form 13 per cent of the staff just above gay people and just below people from ethnic minorities.

The report also shows that some £588,000 of taxpayers money was spent on management consultancy last year compared with just £22,000 the previous year. This does seem an extraordinary amount of money from a budget which the government has limited.

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Exclusive Fresh Update: Betrayal – Parliamentary Ombudsman dumps on 3.6 million 50s born women

Posted on by
Rob Behrens -Parliamentary Ombudsman

Leaked document now published says nearly all not to get one penny compensation – despite his finding of partial maladministration – and WASPI appears to have covered this up

For those who want to see the full document or the few doubters that this can be true – you can read the document here [ google docs] or see below.

phso-stage-2-provisional-remedy-summary-letter-8.12.22-copy-copyDownload

Fresh Update: MPs on the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee have taken up this story by writing to Rob Behrens asking for an explanation of the proposed remedy that has been sent to six complainants. Read the letter in full here.

The letter from Tory MP William Wragg, the chair, reads: ” We have received reports that women affected by the changes are expected to receive minimal, if any, financial compensation…

“I would therefore be grateful if you could clarify:

  • whether any decisions around financial remedies have been taken or communicated
    to those     affected;
  • whether there have been any changes in the expected timeline for the final report;
    and
  • whether there have been any changes in who will be eligible for compensation.”

In what must be the biggest betrayal of complainants since the Ombudsman was set up by Harold Wilson in 1967 Rob Behrens has put out proposals to deprive the vast majority of 1950s born women from any compensation for the maladministration suffered by being not personally informed about the rise in the pension age from 60 to 66.

The six people who complained will get £1000 each and another 600 who complained to the Ombudsman could get the money if the Department for Work and Pensions deign to pay them which on its present record seems unlikely. For the rest there is nothing.

This proposal is a far cry from the promise made by Angela Madden, the leading figure from Waspi, who told a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in September that payments of £10,000 to £20,000 each were a possibility for women who had missed out. See here. She has continually urged people to rely on the Ombudsman to sort this out – though recently has suggested a direct approach to the DWP to get a fair settlement because of the numbers of women dying.

A big emphasis has been highlighted by Waspi on making sensible demands and not going for full restitution – now on the basis of direct discrimination- as pushed by Backto60 and now by former judge Jocelynne Scutt, in her report.

Well this is the provisional settlement Waspi has got and it has not been worth the wait. Confidential proposals, seen by these blog, reveal this betrayal. It reads:

The Ombudsman’s proposed remedy -guaranteed £1000 offer to six people

“Our provisional view about remedy is that DWP should:

• publicly acknowledge maladministration in its communication about changes to State Pension age resulting from the 1995 Pensions Act and maladministration in its complaint handling

• publicly apologise for the impact that maladministration has had on the sample complainants and others similarly affected

* pay each sample complainant £1000 compensation for the injustice they have suffered

• establish and fund a compensation scheme to provide equivalent compensation [ie £1000] to anyone else who has suffered the same injustice as the sample complaints because of maladministration in its communication about State Pension age and its complaint handling

• provide an adequate and proportionate financial remedy to anyone who can evidence they suffered financial loss because they lost opportunities to make different decisions due to maladministration in DWP’s communication about State Pension age

• provide an adequate and proportionate financial remedy to anyone who can evidence they lost opportunities to add qualifying years to their National Insurance record because of DWP’s maladministration in not adequately using research and feedback about people’s understanding of the new State Pension to improve its service and performance.”

Now there are a barrel load of problems in this settlement. There also appears to be some level of deceit over recent pronouncements by the PHSO to Parliament and Waspi to the Daily Express and the Independent. First the proposed settlement. To get even this measly £1000 some 3.6 million 50s women have to both prove they didn’t get a letter and prove they lost opportunities to take different decision or lost out to pay in expensive sums to the DWP to build up their pension. Many of these women who were on the breadline would not have had the thousands of pounds of cash to do this.

Joanna Wallace destroyed all the complaining letters from 50swomen

Secondly very simply how do you prove you didn’t get a letter? The DWP has said it has no records and DWP’s so called Independent Case Examiner, Joanna Wallace, as I reported earlier -see here – has conveniently destroyed loads of letters she received complaining about this issue after being cleared of maladministration by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. It is almost as though there have been deliberate moves to make sure no evidence was available in advance of the Ombudsman’s decision.

I also found it extraordinary that the Ombudsman has put forward a remedy so quickly after being quizzed by MPs on the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee last month. At the time – see my blog here – Amanda Amroliwala, chief executive of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, was closely questioned by MPs about the 50swomen investigation and said it could take until March before the full investigation and remedy were published.

To give her the benefit of the doubt perhaps she was so taken aback by the questioning from MPs she may have speeded it up. More suspicious minds might suggest she daren’t tell them what the Ombudsman had in mind because it would create a furore. The only public announcement by the PHSO since then has been it has completed stage 2 of the investigation but still has no remedy in mind.

Angela Madden, chair of Waspi, showcasing her Jubilee Pin for going “the extra mile to improve the lives of others”. Pic credit:Waspi

The other extraordinary behaviour has been by WASPI. An article in the Daily Express on Friday quotes WASPI saying this.

Angela Madden, chair of WASPI, said: “These latest findings confirm the previous conclusion of the Ombudsman that maladministration took place at the Department for Work and Pensions. “But nearly 18 months after the Ombudsman’s first report, we are still waiting for his conclusions on a remedy.  This is becoming a lengthy examination of the blindingly obvious.”

Now by then people had been informed of the proposed remedy. Perhaps Angela Madden didn’t know. or perhaps she didn’t want anyone else to know because it is obviously too embarrassing for their campaign.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s press office said they were unable to comment was the investigation was on going.

But John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor and a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, said: ” This offer is completely unacceptable. I shall be raising it immediately with the PACAC committee”. As Shadow Chancellor he had offered a £58 billion settlement over five years. I await a response from WASPI.

In the meantime Rob Behrens, the Ombudsman, according to his posts on Linked In has been literally glad handing with President Zelensky in Kiev at a special Europe wide human rights conference. Someone ought to ask him about the human rights of the 3.6 million 50s women who will now be cheated by him out of any decent settlement. The DWP must be cheering him on.

As a matter of the interest the pension age for women in Ukraine is 60 – six years below the current age in the UK. See this link.

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