The Pensions Ombudsman has continued to struggle with delayed wait times as a result of a rise in demand for its services.
In June the ombudsman faced a number of delays after it made its application forms and live chat temporarily unavailable while it investigated a cyber incident in June.
Since then, it has been receiving “a very high volume of calls”.
The ombudsman said it does not provide average times for cases to be resolved as this can vary based on the complexity of the case and the circumstances of an individual member.
But it said 74 per cent of its overall pension complaints were closed within 12 months.
Yet in a post on social media platform X by David Penney, a chartered financial planner at Penney, Ruddy & Winter, the ombudsman said it had extended the timescales by an additional eight weeks.
It said: “Thank you for your email of July 10, 2023. We sent you an email on August 7, 2022 thanking you for sending your application.
“We advised that the current timescale to complete the standard jurisdiction was 12 months.
“Whilst I note this timescale has recently expired, our timescales have been extended since we last contacted you and it will now likely be an additional eight weeks before your case is progressed any further.”
The ombudsman case Penney is handling is in relation to a widow who has gone into battle with a UK pension scheme over a £700,000 tax bill that lawyers and financial experts said was unnecessary for her to pay.
As reported in our sister title Financial Times, the widow, Clare Chalmers, took the trustees of Citibank (UK) pension plan to the Pensions Ombudsman, claiming it distributed her late husband’s pension fund in an “unsympathetic” and “incoherent” way.
Penney said: “The client made a complaint in line with the article and it still hasn’t been looked at by a case handler.
“This is completely unacceptable as Mrs Chalmers and her daughters have paid the tax and are still left in limbo.
“The impetus has gone from the original complaint and it makes it far harder to deal with if it ends up being 18 months after the event.”
The ombudsman said it has seen a continued rise in demand for its services which has resulted in customer waiting times for its free service becoming longer than it would like.
It said it has been working with the DWP to tackle this and to reduce waiting times.
sonia.rach@ft.com
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