Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bates on 25 June (HL8507), how much they spent on the PensionWise service in each year since 2015; which organisations are responsible for the service's delivery; and how they assess the impact and effectiveness of the service.

Pension Wise spent £31.7 million in 2015/16, £24.4 million in 2016/17 and £20.6 million in 2017/18. Pension Wise is a service run by the Department, and is funded by a levy on the financial services industry.

Face to face appointments are delivered by Citizens Advice England & Wales (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Citizens Advice Scotland. Telephone appointments are delivered by the Pensions Advisory Service, Citizens Advice Scotland and TelePerformance Ltd.

The Pension Wise website is maintained by the Department.

The Pension Wise service evaluation research conducted by Ipsos MORI, published in October 2017, showed that people who had a Pension Wise appointment, or had used the Pension Wise website, were significantly more likely to answer questions about their pension options correctly. They were also much more likely to have calculated how much income they would need in retirement, shopped around for quotes, and considered how much tax or charges they would pay based on their chosen options.

Customers and non-users were asked a series of questions to assess their factual knowledge of their pension options. Appointment customers had a knowledge score average of 70 per cent, just fractionally more than website customers who had a knowledge score average of 68 per cent. Both cohorts compare favourably to non users of the service, where the knowledge score average was 47 per cent