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Campaigners battling to win compensation for millions of women short-changed by alterations to State Pension age eligibility are drumming up support from candidates in forthcoming council elections.

Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) is calling on its 250,000 members to question aspiring councillors about how they will support the campaign’s call for fair and fast compensation and how they will back their local authority’s leadership to do the same.

The campaign group represents women who were born in the Fifites and thought they would be entitled to draw their State Pension at 60. Many packed in their jobs before retirement date to look after dependent relatives. But the Government raised the age to 65 to equalise with men, giving the impacted women one or two years’ notice of the move by which time it was too late for them to change their plans.

Angela Madden, who chairs the national WASPI Campaign, said: “These women have incurred material losses at the highest level.”

WASPI protest outside the Houses of Parliament (photo: Getty Images/Isabel Infantes)

Born in the Fifites, Angela is among the 3.6 million women affected by the change in pension age eligibility. Angela gave up work at 55 but had to wait for nearly 11 years before she could qualify for State Pension.

The Department of Work and Pensions’ failure to promptly notify the women of the alteration was labelled as maladministration by the Ombudsman.

But a second stage of the Ombudsman’s report contained what he now concedes as a “legally flawed” calculation relating to when letters relating to the change in age qualification should have been received. The Ombudsman’s admission resulted from WASPI’s judicial review challenge to the High Court which was funded by £120,000 in donations from impacted women.

A confidential draft stage three report on remedies, including possible compensation, will need to be reconsidered by the Ombudsman as it is based on the flawed stage two report.

Angela, who lives near Chesterfield, is calling for fast and fair compensation. She said: “With one of our number dying every 13 minutes, there’s not a second to waste in recognising the hardship and trauma DWP’s incompetence has caused.”

Women can join the national WASPI Campaign at www.waspi.co.uk. Membership is £25 per year, £15 for concessions and can be paid monthly.

All you need to know about WASPI campaign for 1950s women short-changed by pension age alterations