To find out more about how we can help you, have a look at some frequently asked questions.
You can narrow your search by entering a keyword or selecting the filters on different categories. If you can’t find the answer you are looking for, scroll to the bottom of the page and send us your question.
When someone asks us to look into a problem, they have often been trying to resolve it for some time. A lot of people feel very frustrated or distressed.
We have to be impartial and look into a problem without taking sides. Sometimes a decision that is fair in a legal sense may not seem fair to you personally.
We will always be open and honest with you about how and why we have made our decisions.
Please see our ‘How we investigate complaints’ factsheet for more details on our process and what this means to you.
Before you submit a complaint to us, you need to give the party you think is at fault a chance to put things right.
Many pension schemes or providers have their own complaints process, which is often the best way to make sure your complaint is seen by the relevant people as quickly as possible.
If your complaint is about an occupational pension scheme, you should ask for it to be dealt with under its Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP).
See our factsheet ‘Complaining to the party/parties at fault’ for more information.
If you are not sure who you should complain to, please contact us.
In the first instance you should contact your employer and try to resolve the matter yourself. To find out more please see our ‘Complaining to the party/parties at fault’ factsheet.
But, if you have already raised the matter with your employer and it remains unresolved, please complete our application and we will look into whether we can help to resolve it.
You may also want to report the non-payment of contributions to The Pensions Regulator. Some useful information can be found in our ‘Workplace pensions – unpaid pension contributions’ factsheet.
Our Resolution Team factsheet explains what the team does and how it operates.
No. We can help with your complaint or dispute if you used to be a member of a scheme or think that you should be a member of a scheme.
We can also help if you are entitled to benefits from someone else’s pension scheme, for example, following a divorce or the death of a member.
In some circumstances we can help employers participating in a scheme or a trustee or manager of a scheme, if they think there is a problem with the way a scheme is run.
To find out more, visit our ‘Can I complain?’ page.
As Determinations made by The Pensions Ombudsman are legally binding, you need to be 18 or over to make a complaint to us. If you are under 18, your parent or guardian will have to make the complaint on your behalf.
To find out more, visit our ‘Can I complain?’ page.
We look at complaints about the way personal and occupational pension schemes are run.
So, your complaint might be about the employer, trustee, manager or administrator of the scheme. You can make a complaint against more than one party.
If you are not sure who your complaint should be against, contact us.
We cannot consider a complaint that has been or is being considered by a Court or Employment Tribunal. It is very unlikely that we will look at a complaint that has been considered by another Ombudsman. If you disagree with an initial or final decision made by another body, you should ask it what appeal options are available to you.
Ombudsman offices were set up to provide free and straightforward access to formal complaint resolution and we need to use our resources both wisely and fairly – it would not be fair for any party to the complaint if we were to investigate a matter that someone else has already made a decision on.
If a Court, Employment Tribunal or other Ombudsman has looked at the matter and declined to carry out an investigation, for example because it decides it does not have the appropriate jurisdiction, we may be able to investigate your complaint. If the other body is only looking at part of your complaint, please let us know and we will see if we can help you. To find out more, visit our ‘Can I complain?’ page.
Details of what we can and cannot investigate can be found on our ‘Can I complain?’ page.
If you are unsure about whether we can investigate your complaint, please contact us.
We can’t help with tracing lost pensions. There is a dedicated government body, called the Pension Tracing Service, who can help trace lost pensions. Their contact details and how to access their service, can be found on the gov.uk website.
Many pension schemes or providers have their own complaints process, which is often the best way to make sure your complaint is seen by the relevant people as quickly as possible. If your complaint is about an occupational pension scheme, you should ask for it to be dealt with under its Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP). For more information, see our factsheet on complaining to the parties at fault.
Each pension scheme has its own time frame within which to respond to complaints under its IDRP. If you do not receive a response within the time limits set out in the scheme’s IDRP, you can complain to us straight away by completing our application form.
If you have complained to a private pension provider and haven’t received a response after eight weeks, you can submit an application form straight away.
You will need to check that we can deal with your complaint and that you are within time to bring a complaint to us.
To find out more information, visit our ‘Can I complain’ page.
When you submit your application, you will need to send us a copy of your complaint letter/email and any other relevant documentation relating to your complaint.
No, any complaints regarding the State Pension including the contracted-out deduction must be referred to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). You can find more information on the gov.uk website.
The Pensions Ombudsman is not a consumer champion or a watchdog.
We act impartially. That means we consider all the evidence submitted by both sides before we make a decision.
To find out more, please visit our ‘what we do’ page.
If your complaint is determined by the Pensions Ombudsman, they will consider whether or not to make an award for any non-financial injustice caused by the party being complained about (commonly referred to as ‘distress and inconvenience’ awards).
You can find out more in our factsheet ‘Redress for non-financial injustice’.
If your pension scheme or provider is based in the UK, you can still bring a complaint to us wherever you live.
You will need to give the party you think is at fault a chance to put things right and check if you are within time to bring a complaint to us.
You can find more information about this by visiting ‘Can I complain?’
During an investigation we will usually share all the information we receive with all parties and give them an opportunity to comment.
We will not withhold information from other people involved in the complaint or communicate on a ‘strictly confidential’ or ‘without prejudice’ basis. For Pension Protection Fund and Financial Assistance Scheme complaints the information provided by other parties will also be made available to any significantly adversely affected people or interested persons.
All parties have a duty to keep all the information about a complaint confidential. That means it can’t be shared with anyone who isn’t directly involved either during the investigation or after it. If any party discloses information improperly we may refer the matter to the courts. The only exceptions to this are Ombudsman Determinations. These are not confidential and can be made available to anyone.
For more information, please read our ‘Privacy and Personal Information Policy’.
As part of the investigation, any party to a complaint can ask us to hold an oral hearing.
It is the Ombudsman's decision whether or not to hold one.
The Ombudsman may decide to hold an oral hearing even if one isn’t requested. Generally, the Ombudsman might decide, or agree, to hold a hearing if there is a significant conflict of evidence that can’t be decided on the papers, or if we think that a party may have been dishonest.
If you think we should hold an oral hearing for your complaint you should write to the Adjudicator explaining why. Oral hearings are open to the public.
There are time limits within which complaints need to be brought to The Pensions Ombudsman. In most cases, applications need to be made to us within three years of the event being complained about, or, if later, within three years of when you were aware of this issue or should have been aware of it.
These time limits can only be extended where reasonable to do so, for example if it can be shown that the complaint was delayed because of serious ill health, pressing family concerns, it was held up with another organisation (such as the Financial Ombudsman Service) or if reasonable continuous and concerted efforts were being made to resolve matters. We may also use our discretion to expand this time limit for new applicants who have been affected by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation.
If more than one event is being complained about, it may be that some are within our time limits and others are outside them.
Similarly, if the complaint is about something that a pension scheme does regularly, such as paying annual increases, any failure to pay these more than three years ago, could fall outside of our time limits. But we may be able to consider a complaint about the non-payment of increases during the last three years.
Different time limits apply if your complaint is about a decision made by the Pension Protection Fund or the Financial Assistance Scheme. See 'What are the time limits for a complaint about a decision made by the Pension Protection Fund or the Financial Assistance Scheme?'
Before The Pensions Ombudsman will investigate a complaint, you must have first tried to resolve matters with the party or parties you believe to be at fault. If you have not yet completed this step – please see our 'Complaining to the party/parties at fault' factsheet.
If you are dissatisfied with their response, or you have not received a response within the time limits set out within the party/parties’ complaints procedure (or within eight weeks if there are no time limits), you should check to see if we can help.
Each person with a complaint needs to ask us to investigate even if the complaints appear to be identical.
Usually we expect multiple complainants to be represented by one person so that we have a central point of contact for all correspondence.
You can find more information on our ‘What’s involved’ page.
If you are considering making a group complaint, please contact us for further information and guidance.
Before The Pensions Ombudsman will investigate a complaint, you must have first tried to resolve matters with the party or parties you believe to be at fault. If you have not yet completed this step - please see our factsheet 'Complaining to the party/parties at fault'.
If you are dissatisfied with their response, or you have not received a response within the time limits set out within the party/parties’ complaints procedure (or within eight weeks if there are no time limits), you should check to see if we can help.
To check that it is a complaint that we can deal with, please visit ‘Submitting a complaint’ for more information. If it is, you’ll be asked to complete an application.
Please note, to apply you will need to submit a copy of:
For information about what to expect from us, including information about our timescales, please visit ‘what’s involved’.
The Ombudsman - in their capacity as the Pension Protection Fund Ombudsman (PPFO) - can consider complaints concerning a decision made by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) or the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS). The time limits for complaining to the PPFO about these complaints are considerably shorter than those for complaints to the Pensions Ombudsman about a personal or occupational pension.
If your complaint concerns maladministration against the PPF or a reviewable matter, you will need to submit your complaint to the PPFO within 28 days from the date the PPF’s Reconsideration Committee issues its decision. We can extend this time limit in exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances are determined on the facts of each individual case and could include, for example, delays caused by an applicant’s serious ill health.
We cannot extend the time limit for complaints concerning certain reviewable matters, for example cases where the Board issues a withdrawal notice refusing to assume responsibility for specified schemes. A full list of the reviewable matters in respect of which we cannot extend time is provided under Regulation 3(2) of The Pension Protection Fund (Reference of Reviewable Matters to the PPF Ombudsman) Regulations 2005.
If you are appealing a FAS review decision, you will need to submit your appeal to the PPFO within two months from when the PPF (as Scheme Manager for the FAS) issues the FAS review decision. We can extend the two months’ time limit in exceptional circumstances.
We cannot look at complaints of maladministration against the FAS.
Yes.
When you complete our application, you can nominate someone else to help you with your complaint to us – this person is known as your representative.
Your representative could be a member of your family, a friend or a professional person such as a solicitor. Please note: You are unlikely to get any costs repaid (even if your complaint is upheld) because our service is designed so that people should not normally need professional help.
We will then deal with your representative directly and all correspondence will be sent to them until you tell us to stop.
If you start to deal with us directly, and then later decide you want someone to help you, that’s fine, too. You just need to let us know who you want to be your representative.
A CMC is a firm or individual which can handle a complaint on your behalf.
Our service is designed so that people should not normally need professional help. But if you do need help, you can appoint a representative to act on your behalf when you complete your application. This could be a friend, family member or a CMC. If you decide to use a CMC, they will charge you for the service. The value you get from using a CMC may depend on the type of claim you are making and how easy it would have been to make the claim yourself.
Before appointing a CMC, you should know:
If you want to appoint a CMC for a complaint to TPO, you should complete the online application yourself, and tick ‘Yes’ when asked if you are ‘appointing someone to represent you’. You will then need to include the CMC’s details. As with any other representative, we will write to the CMC directly throughout the complaint process, not to you.
It is important that all the information provided by you or your representative, including any documents included with your application, are accurate and relevant to your specific complaint, and do not contain facts or allegations which are known to be false, or which are unconnected to your complaint.
Only an Ombudsman’s Determination is final, binding and enforceable in court (unless there is a successful appeal on a point of law).
At The Pensions Ombudsman, wherever possible we resolve complaints informally at an early stage, frequently before the issues have been formally considered by the parties.
If your complaint is investigated by an Adjudicator, they will investigate and determine complaints that were not resolved by the parties or by us at an early resolution stage. They will write to all parties and give their view on the complaint.
If they think nothing has gone wrong, they will explain why. Or, if an Adjudicator thinks something has gone wrong, they will explain their thinking and say what should be done to put things right.
Everyone involved in the complaint will have a chance to comment on the Adjudicator’s view.
If all parties accept the Adjudicator's view and proposal to put things right, we will close the case.
If any one of the parties to the complaint does not agree with the Adjudicator's view, they can ask for the complaint to be referred to the Ombudsman with a view to a final Determination being made.
We cannot decide on your eligibility for an ill health pension, but we can look at how a decision about an ill health pension was made and if it was made by the right decision maker.
We would look at whether the right decision-maker has:
If we decide that the decision-maker has not reached its decision properly, we can direct them to revisit their decision and make it again. However, we cannot prevent them from reaching the same decision as long as it is made properly.
Contributions deducted from your pay must be paid to the scheme by the 22nd of the following month (if paid electronically) or by the 19th of the following month in any other case.
If this has not happened, you should first raise this with your employer and give them the chance to put things right. To find out more, please see our ‘Complaining to the party/parties at fault’ factsheet.
If you are unhappy with their response or remain dissatisfied please submit a completed application to us along with relevant paperwork and supporting documents.
More information can be found in our ‘Workplace pensions – unpaid pension contributions’ factsheet.
If a company becomes insolvent, it is often possible for some unpaid pension contributions owed to the pension scheme to be claimed from the National Insurance Fund. This is usually the quickest and most practical method to recover unpaid contributions.
When a company becomes insolvent, an insolvency practitioner is appointed to manage the company’s affairs. They should work with the pension scheme administrators to identify what pension contributions are outstanding and then submit the claim to the National Insurance Fund for payment on your behalf. Only contributions unpaid in the 12 months leading up to the insolvency can be claimed.
You may want to contact the insolvency practitioner to make sure this is being done.
You can also bring a complaint to us, but we can only direct your employer to make the contributions it owes to your pension scheme. As companies which are insolvent generally have insufficient assets, they may not have enough money to do this, so any directions we make may not lead to any practical results.
Deciding on how to distribute the lump sum can be a complex and difficult decision for the trustees or administrators of the pension scheme. It is important that the decision-maker’s decision stands up to scrutiny so it should not be rushed in case relevant factors are overlooked.
Because of the complexity and potential sensitivity, HMRC allows up to two years for a payment to be made before it is potentially subject to a tax charge.
If you are unhappy with the decision-maker’s decision once it has been made, you should raise this with them in the first instance. To find out more, please see our ‘Complaining to the party/parties at fault’ factsheet.
If you are unhappy with their response or remain dissatisfied, please submit a completed application to us along with relevant paperwork and supporting documents.
Generally, we will not impose our own decision on how death benefits should be distributed, but we can look at how the scheme’s decision was made and if it was made by the right decision-maker.
We would look at whether the right decision-maker has:
If we decide that the decision-maker has not reached its decision properly, we can direct them to revisit their decision and make it again. However, we cannot prevent them from reaching the same decision as long as it is made properly
Your pension provider can only pay you the benefits that you are entitled to under the rules of the pension scheme. Giving you an incorrect quote does not change your entitlement.
If you relied on the figures given to you in the higher estimate and spent monies or made financial decisions you would not have done otherwise, there can be grounds to argue that your provider should put you in the position you would have been in if they had not given you the incorrect information in the first place.
However, it must be the case that the error was not one you could have spotted yourself. For example, if the original figure seemed very high in the context of your pension contributions or length of service, or if something else does not look right, you should query it straightaway. Once you are aware of the provider’s mistake, you would be expected to change any decisions you made based on the higher estimate to stop your financial loss getting bigger.
If you think you have relied on incorrect information you should first give details to your pension provider. If you are dissatisfied with their response, please complete our application and send us all relevant paperwork.
Your pension provider can only pay you the benefits that you are entitled to under the rules of the pension scheme, and the provider has a duty to try to recover the overpayment.
If you believed the benefits you were being paid were correct and spent money or made financial decisions on the basis of receiving that level of benefits, which you would not have made otherwise, you may have grounds to argue that you should not have to repay some or all of the money that has already been paid to you.
However, you must be able to show that you changed your financial position based on the amounts paid to you, or that the pension provider made a clear statement that you relied on. It is also very important to be able to show that any change you made to your financial position or reliance on statements was reasonable.
If you have been made aware by your pension provider that they have been overpaying your benefits, you should also take any steps you can to reduce your financial loss. For example, if you had booked a holiday which you would not have booked if you knew that you were receiving the overpayments, and it is possible to cancel it, you should do so.
If the overpayments have been made to you for a long time, there might be some of the money the provider cannot recover because too much time has passed, but this will depend on the exact circumstances of the overpayments.
If you think you should not have to repay the overpayments, or that a repayment plan proposed by your pension provider will put you in financial hardship, you should raise this with your pension provider. If you are unsatisfied with their response, please complete our application and send us all relevant paperwork.
Losing your job because of ill health does not mean that you automatically qualify for an ill health pension. You will need to meet the eligibility criteria for an ill health pension set out in your scheme’s rules.
If you think you may be entitled to receive an ill health pension, you should first contact your scheme.
If you have some feedback on how we could improve our service or think something may have gone wrong, please contact us.
Details on how to do this can be found on our ‘contact us’ page in the ‘Unhappy with our service’ section. .
If your complaint is investigated by an Adjudicator, they will write to all parties and give their view on the complaint.
If they think nothing has gone wrong, they will explain why. Or, if an Adjudicator thinks something has gone wrong, they will explain their thinking and say what should be done to put things right.
Everyone involved in the complaint will have a chance to comment on the Adjudicator’s view.
If all parties accept the Adjudicator's view and proposal to put things right we will close the case.
If any one of the parties to the complaint does not agree with the Adjudicator's view, they can ask for the complaint to be referred to the Ombudsman with a view to a final Determination being made.
A Determination is final and binding on all parties to a complaint subject to a successful appeal on a point of law. This means we cannot change the Determination, except for minor errors such as typing mistakes. You can find out more information about Determinations by visiting our ‘Determination Factsheet’.
If you want a Determination changed you must appeal to the High Court in England or Wales, the Court of Session in Scotland or the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland.
This is a statutory right and you do not need our consent to lodge an appeal.
In England and Wales appeals against Determinations or directions of an Ombudsman require the permission of the High Court.
The person lodging the appeal will need to satisfy the Court that the appeal has a real prospect of success or that there is some other compelling reason why it should be heard.
This requirement does not currently affect appeals in Northern Ireland. In Scotland an appeal follows a different process, known as a “case stated”.
Any directions made by an Ombudsman can still be enforced pending an appeal unless the court orders a stay or sist (which applies in Scotland).
To find out more, visit the ‘How to appeal’ page.
