Pensions Ombudsman: Standards

(asked on 28th November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the waiting times for the Pensions Ombudsman to respond to enquiries that the Early Resolution Team have escalated.


Answered by
Paul Maynard Portrait
Paul Maynard
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 4th December 2023

TPO’s Early Resolution team (ERT) investigates complaints where TPO believes the complaint may be resolved informally. Over 80% of cases that go to ERT are resolved there, but where this is not possible, the complaint is passed to TPO’s Adjudication Team. Cases may then be escalated to the Pensions Ombudsman where the complainant does not agree with the adjudicator’s decision.

DWP have recently provided additional funding to TPO towards reducing waiting times. This funding has been used to create a new casework support team. This has significantly increased case clearances.

Due to variation in the complexity of cases, TPO does not currently hold validated data on the average time for cases to pass through the Adjudication Team and Ombudsman.

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