The government has been asked why it has not given the Independent Case Examiners (Ice) office additional resources to deal with complaints made by women that have been affected by the state pension age increase.

Labour MP for Birmingham, Hall Green, Roger Godsiff also asked the government whether it will provide such resources so that complaints can be processed in a “timely manner”. However, Parliamentary undersecretary for family support, housing and child maintenance, Kit Malthouse, stated that Ice provides a “demand led service”

“The time it takes to allocate and process complaints varies depending on the volume of referrals received, the complexity of the cases on hand and the available investigative resource,” he said. Despite this, Malthouse acknowledged that Ice is currently experiencing high volumes of referrals as a direct result of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign.

He explained that its resources are reviewed on an annual basis and additional resource has been provided for the 2018/19 financial year. He said Ice aims to provide the highest quality of services and despite current waiting times, 82 per cent of those who responded to the Ice customer survey said they were satisfied with the service they received.

In its most recent annual report, Ice said cases received and accepted about pensions have “increased significantly” due to complaints from the Waspi campaign. It said 441 cases were received between March 2016 and March 2017 about pensions, of which 184 were accepted. In the previous year just 161 cases were received, with 66 cases accepted.

Last month, a Bill tabled by a Waspi All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) proposed transitional arrangements for the women affected by the state pension increase. Despite this, earlier this week the Back to 60 campaign group said the APPG vote on the transitional arrangements was “wholly invalid”.

Back to 60 has submitted a formal complaint to the parliamentary commissioner Kathryn Stone regarding a breach of voting rules by the APPG for state pension inequality for women. The campaign group has explained that the APPG voting rules were breached, in a vote on transitional arrangements, due to the involvement of non-MPs, specifically peer group representatives. The group has argued that the consultation and findings of the APPG group are “biased”.

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