A Port Talbot insight

The Financial Regulators Complaints (FRC) Commissioner has upheld a complaint over the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) handling of the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) advice scandal, concluding that the regulator acted too slowly to prevent widespread unsuitable advice.

It is meagre comfort for the steelworkers involved who from 2017 could see exactly what the failings of the regulators were at the time.

In a final report, the commissioner, Abby Thomas, found that the FCA contributed to “serious consumer detriment” among steelworkers.

There has been no investigation of the failures of the Scheme itself to provide assistance to the steelworkers or indeed the failure of its regulator (the Pensions Regulator) to make it clear what was being lost by leaving the pension scheme

More than £17.6m has been paid in compensation to over 470 affected customers so far, many of whom suffered losses exceeding statutory limits.

But the payments have been based on a formula that works on current annuity rates. Those who got the bulk or these payments got them before the hike in gilt rates in 2022 which meant the formula work against the former pensioners.

The FCA previously described the case as “one of the worst” it had seen, highlighting the extent of consumer harm within the BSPS advice market.

I gave witness to the Work and Pensions Committee on this, Megan Butler followed me and steelworkers who had been ripped off. Megan Butler was in charge of the FCA’s operation but had no idea of what was going on and was berated by Frank Filed for being ill prepared both for her session and for what happened in Scunthorpe, Port Talbot and elsewhere.

However, the commissioner has argued that the FCA’s shortcomings were not isolated but reflected “a series of regulatory failings” across the entire lifecycle of the BSPS episode.

I would agree and this blog intends to stand as a reminder that it warned anyone who would here that disaster was coming when a strategy was adopted that kept the scheme out of the PPF. If the original proposal had been adopted and the £15bn scheme had been put into the PPF’s waiting room, something could have been done to protect steelworkers. Instead a silly scheme was devised by consultants, the lead of which was ex TPR. Here is not the place to rehears detail , but a book needs to be written.

Here is the conclusion of the Pension Age Article, thank you Callum Conway.

In particular, the report concluded that the regulator failed to act on known risks in the defined benefit (DB) transfer market, despite earlier evidence of poor advice standards and systemic weaknesses.

Key criticisms included its delays in banning contingent charging despite recognised conflicts of interest, inadequate oversight of adviser qualifications and professional indemnity insurance (PII), and a failure to gather real-time data on firms advising BSPS members during the “Time to Choose” window.

The commissioner therefore upheld the primary complaint that the FCA was “consistently behind the curve in anticipating, preventing and responding” to the crisis.

She also highlighted that although a redress scheme was introduced, many steelworkers had not been restored to the position they would have held had they remained in the scheme.

In response to the final report, the FCA rejected the central finding, arguing that its actions were “reasonable and proportionate” based on the information available at the time.

The FCA stated that it “does not agree” with the conclusion that it was behind the curve, pointing instead to its risk-based supervisory approach following the 2015 pension freedoms and subsequent enforcement activity.

It noted that more than £106m in redress had been secured for 1,870 former BSPS members and that enforcement action had been taken against over 20 individuals and firms.

The regulator also emphasised that DB transfers were already presumed unsuitable under its rules, placing responsibility on firms to act in customers’ best interests.

However, it acknowledged that data-sharing limitations constrained early visibility of the issue and added that improvements had since been made, including enhanced analytics and closer coordination with other regulators.

In an interim statement, the commissioner signalled that the FCA’s response raised “clear points of disagreement” and would be reviewed in more detail.

A further considered response is expected in due course.

A dark morning on the banks of Loch Rannoch

I came up on the train yesterday afternoon with a couple of South African bankers who’ve bought up a bed and breakfast in Pitlochry. I thought how sweet until they told me that rooms were between £170 and £180. Perthshire is clearly a lot more expensive than London! They tell me they get 85% of rooms booked over the summer.

But I’m not sure that this is summer or even spring. The snow is coming down and I don’t suppose that the things that are still free, the hills and mountains , feature much in the tourist brochures. Indeed, the tourists, according to my travelling companions are typically coming in the wake of Donald Trump, looking to invest large amounts of American money in golf courses and gated communities which allow them to enjoy exclusively the delights of this bonnie country.

For my family, the trip up to Kinloch Rannoch is an annual event which began in 1977 and continues in the same house on the banks of the Loch as ever it did. Back then the cost of living the Perthshire life was a fraction of what it is for today’s tourists but mountains like Ben Lawers and Schiehallion are immutable.

Quite what I’ll do these next seven years has not become clear. I have no car nor capacity to drive a car, having been prone to a kind of seizure akin to a stroke – something you can survive when walking , but not when driving on a public road.

I hope that I may get down to Perth and Fife to see the friends of this blog. I hope that I will be able to make it to Innerpeffray near Crieff, maybe to Mallaig by train from Rannoch or to the deep north by train from Blair Athholl.

While I have been writing these words the weather has changed and the view across the loch has changed

But best of all, is the quietness of this place as it is with the soft snow falling around me in late March.

This picture is what I can see when the sun arrives and whether it is bright or dull (as this blog started) , I breathe a different air! It is a different air up here from London and from the expenses of Pitlochry through which I passed as my gateway to beauty.

It is the air that clears to show me this astounding sight

Schielhallion 

I’m interested by the anonymous thoughts of LCP on the spread of interest in CDC.

UK CDC schemes better placed to succeed than earlier models: LCP

“UK CDC schemes better placed to succeed than earlier models”

It is a complicated thought.  LCP are saying that we are likely to do better implementing CDC over here then they did in the first shot at CDC in the Netherlands , because we have learned from them.

Transparent risk-sharing and a simpler benefit structure mean UK Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes could be better placed to succeed than earlier international models, particularly those in the Netherlands.

I think the excursions of the DWP to Holland and elsewhere have convinced us that a simple way forward is easier to do and more likely to win support. They have also learned that trying to teach over 100,000 postmen about actuarial factors was never going to work, Postal workers, like most workers (even in the financial services industry ) are not going to engage with niceties of pricing, valuation and how we can run a scheme without a surplus or deficit belonging to a corporate sponsor.

LCP has highlighted several strengths in the UK approach in a new analysis, arguing that the Dutch system is often misunderstood. It says that it is sometimes seen as evidence that collective pensions “failed”, but the analysis suggests it offers useful lessons in how these schemes can evolve.

To put it simply, those saving for retirement need to be comfortable that they are being given value for money from the money they part with while they work. Right now even so called experts cannot explain the Dutch system and we need to move on from that

According to LCP, the key takeaway is that success depends on how investment risk is built into the design and explained to members.

LCP have made it clear that 70% of the improvement in pensions that comes out of managing pensions collectively comes from doing it from one pot collectively and not giving everyone their own pot to manage or to give back to fiduciaries to manage for them. As the numbers who want to DIY their pension is typically less than 10% of employees, it looks like “opt-out” of CDC to DIY DC (aka SIPP) will be around the levels who opt out of Auto Enroment.

The analysis points to the UK model’s clearer approach. Target pensions adjust as markets move, so funding changes are recognised early rather than building up over time. Members are also told upfront that benefits can go up or down, helping to set more realistic expectations.

The odd thing is that the last 15 years have been good years for investment despite such disasters as COVID , the Ukraine investment and now the war against Iran. But people are frightened about the impact of all the disasters and see little of the long-term market movements in their favour.

Frankly the less we think about being responsible for our pensions and the more it is explained that it is not for them to worry, the happier we will be. We all know that setbacks happen, we feel it in inflation, with interest rates and we get personal financial crisis’ that hurt us, we need out pensions to be boringly reliable, not guaranteed, CDC is unlikely when it does badly to decrease much more than the promised increases , when it does well, pay slightly more than inflation as an increase – going down and up in CDC terms is not the kind of disaster we’re getting on our DC pots right now!

Teaching people that nothing is immune from downturns , is not going to freak a nation out, what would freak us out is to tell people they’d get no help or that they’ll get guarantees – neither prospect is helpfuil.

This is right, the idea that we all can be winners was built into the thinking of DB, because sponsors were always there to help out, the idea of DC was that we all should look after ourselves or take personal advice. We have lived both dreams and seen both turn to nightmares.

LCP partner Launa Middleton says: “Collective pensions are often said to have ‘failed’ in the Netherlands. But the reality is more nuanced. The Dutch experience shows that the durability depends not on avoiding investment risk, but on how that risk is recognised and shared across generations. 

The bottom line is that if you don’t go for the growth and take the risk, you will not get there. There is an opt-out of risk, money can be managed through a bank account or national savings but that doesn’t work over time. People know damn well that they have to take risk and by all being in it together – they will get there. We do not need to personally expert, we cannot rely on the boss to bail us out.

“For the UK, the challenge is not to prove that collective pensions can generate higher returns, but to ensure that the risks taken are consistent with what members understand and trustees can manage over the long term.

This is spot on from LCP. Most people never expected to be made wealthy  either on their own or with an adviser. Nor did people expect bosses to guarantee them deferred pay. They wanted a wage in retirement based on what everyone else is getting “risk sharing”.

“Thequestionis not whether CDC involves risk, it always does, but whether that risk is recognised and governed before expectations move beyond what economics can sustain.” 

When we watch the news we are part of a larger group, . We share  good news and bad – we are after good management and fairness. That is what CDC should go for; it’s more in tune with our expectations than either DB or DC.

Kim Gubler

Thanks to Kim Gubler and KGA. This work has given Pensions Mutual an understanding of the current state of the pensions administration market and how we can procure the best for UMES CDC.

It’s good to have access to the whole paper.

If you have trouble with downloading from a linked in link, use the one above.

Torsten Bell yesterday

Savings bonds (including premium bonds) are supposed to be as safe a place as any to place your money.

Among the complaints is a suggestion that NS&I withheld premium bond prizes from the families of deceased savers

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell) –  View Speech –  Hansard –  – 

I would like to make a statement regarding National Savings & Investments.

On 18 December 2025, NS&I notified the Treasury of an operational failure to comprehensively trace accounts for some customers who had passed away. The result of that failure is that not all savings were identified by NS&I and paid to the beneficiaries of their estates as they should have been. Specifically, processes failed to comprehensively trace some customer holdings where they were spread across multiple profiles or systems.

Hon. Members will be aware of historical challenges in financial services in this regard. For example, the Financial Conduct Authority took enforcement action in 2018 against Santander relating to the tracing of accounts following notification that a customer had passed on. That received significant attention at the time. However, what is now clear is that NS&I and its suppliers did not respond to those warning signs as fully as I and, more importantly, their customers, would expect, and nor did the last Government act.

Bereaved families, whose loved ones held accounts with NS&I, will rightly be anxious about this news, so let me turn to the action that we have taken and the further steps that we are putting in place today. Since being notified, the Treasury has ensured that external advisers, including EY and legal experts, have been engaged to identify the scale of the errors. Through this work, NS&I has reviewed over 34 million customer records. That work is ongoing, but it points to up to a maximum of around 37,500 customers, with up to £476 million in deposits, being affected. Three quarters of cases relate to the period between 2008 and 2025. The number is likely to fall in future, but although it represents less than 0.2% of NS&I’s customers, that is still far too many.

NS&I is not regulated by the FCA, but the Government expect it to live up to the same standards as regulated deposit-taking banks. It is therefore right that NS&I is apologising today. The Government’s priorities now are threefold. First—and immediately, to ensure that the problem is no longer taking place—NS&I has received written assurances from its customer-facing supplier Sopra Steria that the causes of the tracing issue have been addressed and will not affect customers going forward. Its previous supplier, Atos, has also committed to full co-operation, given that it was responsible for handling bereavement cases until 2025.

Our second priority is to ensure that we reunite beneficiaries of those customers who have passed away with any funds that NS&I holds. Those deposits belong to customers. Returning them in no way represents an additional liability to the taxpayer, and for the avoidance of doubt, let me spell out that those savings are 100% safe. The issue is about tracing and not the security of any funds, but it is important, none the less. NS&I has put in place a dedicated programme team and hired an additional 100 staff. I have asked it to publish a delivery plan in May detailing how they will take forward the work to reunite funds with their owners. This will cover: the number of cases affected; how NS&I will proactively contact representatives of estates to ensure they receive the funds that they are due, including interest on savings; and the compensation that, where appropriate, will be paid.

There is no need for individuals to waste money on a claims management company or solicitor. I reassure people that the onus is not on them but on NS&I to act—to contact estate representatives and to reconnect beneficiaries with the money they are due. Further information is available on the NS&I website and its contact centre is open seven days a week. I will also ensure that MPs have a dedicated means of contacting NS&I to raise any constituency cases directly.

Dealing with bereavement is always challenging, and I am sure that we all recognise that finding out, as party of that, that such errors have been made could be distressing. We are committed to ensuring that NS&I supports those who have experienced a loss by making the process for reuniting beneficiaries with their money as easy as possible. We also recognise that there may be tax implications for affected estates and want to avoid bereaved families facing disproportionate disruption and administrative costs as a result of the error. We are exploring what support we can provide and will set this out alongside NS&I’s delivery plan in May.

Current NS&I customers can access their accounts as normal. Any wishing to trace old accounts can use the tracing services direct through NS&I or the My Lost Account website. Because in the past some searches have focused too narrowly on searching for specific accounts, I have also instructed NS&I to make it simpler for people to search for all the accounts or products that they might hold.

Our third priority is institutional. NS&I plays an important role, helping the public to save and providing a material contribution towards Government financing. The organisation must continue to play that role while addressing the tracing issues that I have laid out today. It must also complete what has been a challenging business transformation programme. The programme was put in place back in 2020, but with little progress made in the previous Parliament, as the recent Public Accounts Committee report has set out. This Government have appointed David Goldstone, former chief operating officer at the Ministry of Defence, to support NS&I to bring the programme back on track.

With all this in mind, I also want to make sure that NS&I has the very best leadership in place. Effective from today, I have appointed Sir Jim Harra—former first permanent secretary at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—to take over as the chief executive of NS&I on an interim basis, to provide a fresh start for NS&I’s next phase of development. I also recognise the 22 years of public service of his predecessor Dax Harkins at NS&I.

As well as providing leadership to the organisation, Sir Jim will undertake a review over the next three months to spell out in detail the background to the tracing problem and to set out what lessons must be learned by NS&I. I have discussed this with Sir Jim and am confident that his extensive experience will help guide NS&I in the months ahead. I will ensure that Sir Jim’s review is shared with the Chairs of the Treasury and Public Accounts Committees upon completion.

NS&I holds over £240 billion of savings belonging to 24 million customers. It is an organisation that is valued by those saving with it and by this Government. I repeat NS&I’s apology to its customers and reiterate that every penny of their savings is safe, and—as always—they are 100% guaranteed by the Treasury. I commend this statement to the House.

The full debate including Tory criticism of the tardiness of Government’s reaction to what has happened.