02 July 2008
Enquiries to The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) have reached
record levels in the year in which the service is celebrating 25
years of giving pensions advice.
Details are given in TPAS's Annual Review "Advising on Pensions:
A Review of Activities 07/08" published today (2 July 2008).
The report shows that in the year ending March 2008, over half a
million visits were recorded on our website. A record number of
people (almost 62,000) rang the helplines, in addition to which
there were over 9,000 written enquiries. Dispute cases were also up
but by a smaller margin to 7,000, an increase of just 3%. Overall,
the total number of people using the service in various ways
(excluding visits to our website) was 78,355, an increase of 15%
over the previous year.
35% of all enquiries concerned state pension entitlement,
reflecting perhaps the importance this has in many people's plans.
In relation to private pensions, questions ranged across a wide
spectrum of issues including saving for retirement options, pension
tracing, transfers, scheme closures, buy-outs, funding
arrangements, member protection and so on. Women's pensions
continued to be a popular subject with the newly re-launched
dedicated special helpline much in demand. Similarly, at the end of
the year the new web-based annuity planner appears to have been
very well received as an independent aid for individuals entering
the complex world of annuities.
In dispute cases, a large proportion of complaints related once
again to the poor administration of personal pensions.
Disappointedly, there was also a 16% increase in the number of
complaints about poor administration in relation to occupational
schemes, reversing the apparent improving trend in the previous
year's figures. In other areas there was a large rise in disputes
concerning ill-health early retirements pointing to a stricter
application of scheme rules by companies and trustees.
On the pro-active front, TPAS has continued its programme of talks
on pension matters in the workplace. In the period covered by the
report, there were 80 presentations delivered to over 2,000
employees.
Speaking at the launch of the TPAS report yesterday evening, the
Minister for Pension Reform, Mike O'Brien, said "I am very
conscious of the regard in which TPAS is held across the pension
world. The service it provides is high quality, free, independent
and represents excellent value for money."
Click here to download the report.
