Why you shouldn't believe what you read in the papers.....

This weekend the Department of Work and Pensions have announced that they are going to spend the next year trawling through the National Insurance computer to find women who might be missing out on part of their state pension entitlement - the part that relates to time at home with children.

I have some interest in this topic as I have been badgering the department about the issue for over a year. At first they were resistant, but they have been willing to look at case studies for me, and have now accepted that there is an issue here and they are going to do something about it.

On the face of it, you would assume that this was a good news story.

Now read how the Daily Telegraph wrote the story here.

Apparently this is scandalous news management and burying bad news.

In fact, I know that the DWP wanted to put out the story earlier than this but were prevented from doing so by rules which block announcements during the election period. Furthermore, what they are doing is likely to result in women pensioners getting tens of millions of pounds that they should have been getting all along. Given that this problem largely arises from dodgy record keeping in the 1980s, it's a bit rough to blame the current government - who are actually the ones trying to sort out the mess.

So, what appears in the Telegraph as a shame-faced Government hiding bad news, is actually a Government putting right a historic wrong when many previous governments failed to do so.

I'm not slow to criticise the Government when I think they have got something wrong, but on this one they are doing the decent thing and it must be pretty galling to be slagged off for it!

UPDATE: To see the story written straight - this is how Moneybox have reported it;