Slowest responding defined benefit schemes revealed

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The East Riding of Yorkshire council defined benefit (DB) scheme has been named the slowest in responding to adviser requests after taking more than 17 weeks to send information back.

The scheme took an average of 17.1 weeks to respond to client requests submitted by advisory firm Portafina, placing it firmly at the bottom of all the DB and defined contribution (DC) schemes tested by the firm.

It was followed by a fair margin by Lancashire Council, which took 11.1 weeks and West Midlands Pension, which needed 10.3 weeks to return the information.

Royal Mail’s DB pension scheme, which earlier this year announced it would be closing to future accruals from next year, came fourth with an average response time of 10.2 weeks.

Portafina had benchmarked the time taken by different pension schemes to provide the basic information necessary to advise clients on areas like the pension freedoms.

The firm said the stats showed just how slow some providers had become "as they struggle to cope with demand".

The analysis covers 12,337 requests for information made by Portafina on behalf of 6,821 new clients to 650 different DC and DB pension scheme providers and scheme administrators.

It showed the fastest DB scheme, Diageo Pensions, was more than 10 times faster than East Riding, at an average response time of 1.6 weeks, followed by Clerical Medical (2.1 weeks) and Prudential (2.4 weeks).

Fastest DB Schemes based on average number of weeks to provide information

Diageo Pensions 1.6 weeks 2nd fastest in 2016

Clerical Medical 2.1 weeks

Prudential 2.4 weeks

Phoenix Life Ltd 2.6 weeks

DHL Group Retirement Plan 2.6 weeks


Slowest DB Schemes based on average number of weeks to provide information

East Riding of Yorkshire (Council) 17.1 weeks

Lancashire Council 11.1 weeks

West Midlands Pension (Council) 10.3 weeks

Royal Mail Pension 10.2 weeks

Strathclyde Pension (Council) 7.3 weeks 4th slowest in 2016

Portafina said: “Whilst the top performing companies have coped very well with the additional demand brought by the pension freedoms, the gap to the worst performers has grown considerably.

“Generally, across both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes, the slowest providers are taking one to two weeks longer on average to provide information in 2017 than they did in 2016.”

The slowest DC providers were Equitable Life at 5.5 weeks, Mercer at 5.4 weeks and Fidelity Pension Management and Investments both at 4.4 weeks.

Leading the tables on DC was Canada Life at 1.2 weeks, B&CE Benefit at 1.6 weeks and Hargreaves Lansdown at 1.8 weeks.

The only scheme to appear in the top ten for both DB and DC was the DHL Group Retirement Plan.

Jamie Smith-Thompson, managing director of Portafina, said: “In this day and age it is pretty shocking to still be measuring these results – and congratulating the best performers – in terms of weeks taken to provide what is generally pretty straightforward information.”

He warned the fact a mere five providers managed to average less than two weeks meant the government's pensions dashboard would take some time before it becomes a comprehensive tool.

"I look forward to the day when these league tables are measured in seconds,” he said.

The dashboard is set to go live in 2019 and will pull together information of a person's range of pension plans for them to see in one interface.

Fastest DC schemes based on average number of weeks to provide information

Canada Life 1.2 weeks 8th fastest in 2016

B&CE Benefit 1.6 weeks 10th fastest in 2016

Hargreaves Lansdown 1.8 weeks 6th fastest in 2016

DHL Group Retirement Plan 1.8 weeks 7th fastest in 2016

Legal & General Assurance Society 2.0 weeks New entry

Slowest DC Schemes based on average number of weeks to provide information

Equitable Life Assurance Society 5.5 weeks

Mercer Ltd 5.4 weeks

Fidelity Pension Management 4.4 weeks

Fidelity Investments 4.4 weeks

Capita 4.2 weeks 4th slowest in 2016

Only providers who have provided information on behalf of at least 10 clients between November 2016 and October 2017 were included in the tables.

Ricky Chan, director at IFS Wealth & Pensions, said in his experience well-known active DC schemes generally had reasonable turnaround times, with some taking as little as two working days to respond.

He said: "The providers that are generally slow appear to be providers with closed business books.”

He said he had experienced closed book providers asking his clients directly for further details so they would release information to him, which would slow down the process.

"It is all done under the guise of 'protecting consumers against scams' even though we’re an FCA regulated firm so it’s quite unacceptable," he said.