The financial assistance scheme, which was introduced through the Pensions Act 2004 to help some members of defined benefit pension schemes which wind up underfunded, is providing assistance to qualifying members of the Samuel Jones pension scheme.
The Samuel Jones pension scheme is already a qualifying scheme for the financial assistance scheme. Following the review of the financial assistance scheme in May, assistance has been extended to qualifying members who were within 15 years of their scheme’s normal retirement age, or above, on 14 May 2004.
The Government do not accept the ombudsman’s recommendation that the Government should consider restoring full pensions to everyone who was a member of a scheme which wound up under-funded between January 1997 and April 2005. Given that the financial assistance scheme is funded by taxpayers, most of whom do not benefit from a defined benefit pension, we do not believe it would be appropriate or fair to extend the scheme to such an extent.
However, when reviewing the financial assistance scheme we naturally took account of the issues raised by the ombudsman. That review led to the extension of the financial assistance scheme and will give additional certainty to a large number of those who are facing significant loss as the result of the failure of theirpension scheme.