DWP told to clarify state pension age as people approach retirement amid 'moving goalpost' fears

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been urged to do more to clarify when people can expect to retire and receive their state pension.

Speaking the Work and Pensions Committee in the House of Commons today, Sally West, policy manager at Age UK, said people approaching retirement age feared that the “goalposts” would be moved in relation to their state pension age.

She told MPs on the committee that more support should be given to people approaching state pension age. She encouraged the DWP to tell people individually the age at which they can expect to retire, and said regular checks should be made to ensure that people have “received those communications and understood it”.

She said: “There’s more that could be done to be telling people on a regular basis not just the bad news that the state pension is going up but also confirming… you can be confident that your state pension age is this age, this is how you can get your state pension forecast." READ MORE: Public sector workers could see pay rise of just 3.5 per cent next year She added: “Certainly of the interviews we carried out of people in their 50s and 60s, they didn’t have much understanding of the state pension, partly because they were too worried to find out, because they didn’t think there was anything they could do about it and they didn’t know much about it.