Annual Report and Accounts

The 2013/14 Annual Report and Accounts of the Pensions Ombudsman (and Pension Protection Fund Ombudsman) were published today, 10 July.

The report includes information on our operational and financial performance as well as case studies with examples of investigations carried out during the year. Key points of note are:

Our caseload

• There was a 10% increase in the number of enquiries we received
• We took on 1058 cases for investigation, 13% more than expected
• We completed 1115 investigations. More than half of these were concluded by our investigators and did not require an ombudsman decision
• One in three cases decided by an ombudsman was upheld in full or part
• 80% of our investigations took under a year to complete
• Cases about the actions of the Pension Protection Fund remained a small part of our work, with 60 new in the year (though a third more than expected)
• We received about 50 complaints concerning transfers blocked due to alleged pension liberation (with a group about the same receiving scheme). Decisions are expected in summer 2014

Our performance

• We responded to enquiries within an average of 1 day (our target was 3 days)
• We decided whether or not we would investigate a complaint in 6.2 weeks on average (our target was 8 weeks)
• We completed investigations in an average of 9.47 months (our target was 10 months)
• We completed 1115 investigations compared to 954 in 2012/13

Running the office

• We stayed well within budget, with costs of £3.18m
• At the end of the year we had 35 employees

You can download a copy of the report here:

Annual report and accounts 2013-14