Pensions Ombudsman Focus Winter 2025 edition

Welcome to the Pensions Ombudsman Focus for the Winter 2025 period. In this edition, we look at six recent complaints to the Pensions Ombudsman, including:

• A decision which helpfully reiterates that trustees are not obliged to amend scheme rules to accommodate flexibility permitted by the tax regime;
• A decision which demonstrates the importance of having effective processes in place to ensure that procedural delays in paying pension benefits (such as where the benefit requires the trustee to exercise discretion) do not cause delays to the payment of other, unrelated, pension entitlements which are not impacted by the factors causing the delays; 
• A decision which highlights the importance of effectively investigating queries raised by members, particularly where such queries identify or imply a potential error in the information provided, so that such errors can be identified and remedied at the earliest opportunity; 
• A decision in which the Ombudsman found that the trustee had properly implemented a pension sharing order despite the value of the member’s units having reduced between the valuation day and the day the units were divested; 
• A decision confirming that trustees can apply different early retirement factors to different sections of a scheme if the scheme rules provide for this and the decision is reasonable; and
• A decision which highlights the importance of clear communications with members.

Read the Winter 2025 edition.