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Occupational Pensions

Indeed it did, which is why, when the Government responded to what the ombudsman had said about their failings on the informational front, she was disturbed by the nature of that response. She said in her memorandum that it simply reinforced her finding"““that official information provided about the security of pensions was inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent or unclear.””" She gives a concrete example that is worth attending to. She says:"““In paragraph 22.1 of the Government’s response””—" to her report—"““the Government refers to a leaflet issued in January 1996 as being ‘only a brief summary of the changes’ introduced by the 1995 Act and notes that that leaflet dealt with the MFR ‘in just four sentences’.""Yet, as my report shows, that same leaflet began by saying that these changes, including the development of the MFR, had been introduced as ‘the Government wanted to remove any worries people had about the safety of their occupational…pension following the Maxwell affair’. It then went on to state (with emphasis added) that ‘the minimum funding requirement is intended to make sure that pensions are protected whatever happens to the employer’.””" As the ombudsman says,"““That was not true.""This leaflet may well have given only a brief summary of the changes introduced by the 1995 Pensions Act; it may also only have dealt with MFR issues in four sentences. Yet it did both inaccurately.""Given the stated aim of the reforms it was describing and the context in which it was published, the leaflet’s brevity cannot excuse its material inaccuracy.””"