Pensions Ombudsman issues Annual Report

The 2009/10 Annual Report of the Pensions Ombudsman, Tony King, was published on Monday. 

Highlights include:

• 950 complaints were accepted for investigation (although 43 of these cases concerned the same issue and could be dealt with as one), which was a 22% increase on last year (and 13.5% above the estimated number for the year)
• The subject matter of complaints can be hard to classify (and may fall into more than one category), but of those that could be classified, the three highest areas of complaint were in respect of ill-health pensions, misleading information and transfers
• The trend towards significantly quicker turnaround times continues, with it taking an average of 9.6 weeks (against a target of 10 weeks) for the Ombudsman's office to deal with initial enquiries and decide whether to accept a complaint for investigation; 2/3rds of investigations were then completed within 6-12 months (compared with 1/3rd in 2008/9)