13 July 2011
At a time of significant change to private and public sector
pensions, a record number of people are using TPAS services
directly or online to help them understand what steps they should
be taking. TPAS dealt with 12% more written enquires and 54%
more visits to its website compared with 2009/10; telephone calls
were down 15% and written disputes by 22%. We think that the
decline in written disputes may be reflecting the transitory impact
of the financial crises on the 2009 figures and a return to
normality. Our 63,751 helpline calls, 18,419 written
enquiries, 6,021 complaint cases and 334 workplace talks could not
have been delivered without the help of 377 case work and 150
workplace visits volunteer advisers. And with over 2 million
website visits, it means that someone visits our website every 16
seconds.
Satisfaction with our services remain broadly in line with last
year and most of our targets have been met and this has been
confirmed by Independent research commissioned by the Department
for Work and Pensions. This shows that 94% of people who used
the TPAS helpline and 67% of people using the dispute resolution
service were either very satisfied or satisfied with the response
they received and the outcome of their call. 87% of people attended
our talks on retirement planning found the presentation useful or
very useful and over 80% said they would take some action on their
retirement plans following our talks. Of the people who
expressed some dissatisfaction with the service, the report
comments that this was largely driven by the outcome of their
complaints rather than the service they received.
We have played our part in delivering public sector saving with
administration expenditure at £3.6 million compared with
£3.7 million in 2009/10; we have planned to make further
savings as part of the Comprehensive Spending review 2010.
Partha Dasgupta, Chairman of TPAS, said "This is a great
achievement by the staff and volunteer advisers at TPAS at a time
when we were subject to a large amount of change, both
organisationally and as a result of broader public sector
initiatives. Our service continues to be valued and we are
looking forward to playing our part in the pension reform agenda,
particularly automatic enrolment and state pension reforms. I
would like to thank our volunteers for their continuing commitment,
without whom we would not be able to help as many people as we
do."
Marta Phillips, TPAS Chief Executive said "The publication of
this Report and Annual Account marks the end of my first year at
TPAS. It has been, and continues to be, a real pleasure to
work with people who help to make sense of what could be
impenetrable. We have continued to provide a quality service
to people seeking help with a wide range of pensions
issues."
Notes for Editors
1. TPAS provides a national pensions helpline 0845 601 2923
which is open 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday. The dedicated
pensions helpline for women is contactable during the same hours on
0845 600 0806. In 2010/11 TPAS received 63,751 helpline
calls, 18,419 written enquiries and over 2,010,210 people visited
its website at www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk and
handled 6,021 pension disputes.
2. The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) is an independent
organisation, operating at arm's length from DWP. It
provides independent, non-regulated, one-stop information and
guidance to members of the public on pensions matters. TPAS
has three core services that it offers to individuals free of
charge: information and guidance, dispute resolution and visits to
the workplace to provide information on retirement planning.
3. The full research reports on customer satisfaction, can be
found at the following website addresses:
- Website: July 2009 (50 pages):
Click here for the DWP Paper
- Workplace Visits: October 2010 (104 pages):
Click here for the DWP Paper
- Helpline and Dispute Resolution customer satisfaction: February
2011 (121 pages):
Click here for the DWP Paper
4. The service is provided by a nationwide network of volunteers
and augmented by technical and administrative staff based in
London. TPAS is funded by grant-in-aid from DWP which is
recovered by a general levy on pension schemes.
