Complaints

If you’re not happy with how The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has acted, you can use our formal complaints process. We will always take any issues that you raise seriously.

We can only deal with complaints against us. This includes complaints about:

mistakes or lack of care
unreasonable delay
unprofessional behaviour
bias or lack of integrity.

Important

If you want to complain about your employer or your pension scheme, you can report a concern to us.

How to complain about us

You should contact the member of staff or team that you first dealt with to discuss your concerns. They may be able to resolve your concerns there and then.

We will tell you if we need to look into the issues you raise in more detail.

If you’re not satisfied with how we handle your concerns you can make a formal complaint. You should send us your complaint in writing unless you’re unable to do so. Please list your main areas of concern and include all relevant information.

Post

If your complaint relates to an employer’s pension duties, write to the Head of Automatic Enrolment Complaints. For all other complaints, write to the Complaints Manager.

Use the following address for all complaints:

The Pensions Regulator
Telecom House
125-135 Preston Road
Brighton
BN1 6AF

Email

You can send all complaints by email to complaints@thepensionsregulator.gov.uk.

Help with writing to us

If you need help with writing to us we will make every effort to enable you to fully set out your complaint.

How we will deal with your complaint

We use a two-stage formal complaints process.

Stage 1

We will aim to acknowledge your complaint within seven working days of receiving it. We will then review all the information we have about your complaint.

We will look at whether:

staff have taken the right actions
staff have been polite and fair
there has been any unreasonable delay or withholding of information

We will write to tell you of our findings within 30 working days. If it takes longer than this we will inform you of progress, the reasons for any delay and when we will reply in full.

In our response we will:

explain anything that went wrong
set out any steps that have been or will be taken to put matters right
state whether your complaint is upheld or not

If your complaint is not upheld we will explain why in our response.

Stage 2

If you're not satisfied with our response you may be able to use stage 2 of the process. Our stage 1 response will tell you if this is the case.

At stage 2 you can ask us to review the way we handled your complaint. When seeking a review you will need to set out in writing those matters that you’re still not satisfied with.

We will acknowledge your stage 2 complaint within five working days. We will aim to reply to you within 30 working days.

Time limits

The following time limits apply to making a formal complaint:

Stage 1 complaint: any time. But if the complaint is about a particular incident you should make it as soon as you can after the event.
Stage 2 complaint: within 28 days of the date of the stage 1 reply from us.

We understand that each case is different so we may extend these time limits.

Parliamentary Ombudsman

The Parliamentary Ombudsman can also investigate complaints against us. The Ombudsman usually only accepts a case after our complaints procedure has finished.

You should write to your MP. They will refer your complaint to the Ombudsman.

Before you contact us

You should be aware of a couple of issues before you contact us.

We aim to be as open and transparent as possible. However, legal constraints such as the Data Protection Act mean we cannot disclose information in certain situations. For example, we may need to avoid releasing:

personal data
information given in confidence
information gathered during regulatory investigations

As a result we may not be able to give specific details about what action we have taken or information we have gathered.

We have limited resources so we take a risk-based approach to regulating. We take action to educate, enable and enforce so that we are able to meet our statutory objectives. Find more information about our approach to regulating.

What isn’t covered by our complaints process

If you have an issue with your pension scheme or employer you should always try to sort it out with them first.

Pension scheme complaints

You should contact the scheme trustees or scheme provider as they run the scheme. They will often be able to help sort out your problem. If you don’t know who runs your scheme, your employer should be able to tell you. You can also find pension contact details on GOV.UK.

If this doesn’t solve the problem, the pension scheme will have a dispute procedure you can use. This will tell you who will deal with your complaint and within what timescales. You can also get help from the Pensions Ombudsman.

If you believe your scheme isn’t being run properly you can report the scheme to us. However, our investigation may not sort out your own complaint against the scheme.

Employer complaints

If your complaint is about your employer not meeting their pension duties, you can report the concern to us.

Other issues

Other issues not covered by our complaints process include:

questions about the State Pension
scheme members’ claims for compensation
complaints about pensions legislation

Victims of crime

The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (Victims' Code) sets out the minimum standards that organisations in England and Wales must provide to victims of crime. We uphold the standards in the Victims' Code.

You are a victim if you are a:

person who has suffered harm, including physical, mental, or emotional harm, or economic loss which was directly caused by a criminal offence
close relative (or a nominated family spokesperson) of a person whose death was directly caused by a criminal offence

Right to review under the Victims' Code

If you are a victim of an offence into which we opened a formal investigation, we will inform you of decisions relating to whether or not we have decided to prosecute someone.

If we have made one of the following decisions and you are unsatisfied, you have the right to ask for that decision to be reviewed:

not to charge anyone in the case
to discontinue all charges (or withdraw in the magistrates’ court) thereby ending all proceedings
where we decide not to proceed and requested that the charges are not to be proceeded without the leave of the court or the Court of Appeal

The victims’ right to review only applies to decisions we make on or after 1 April 2021.

The right to review does not cover cases where:

we have not formally accepted a criminal investigation
a suspect has not been identified or notified of an investigation by us
we have not interviewed the suspect
charges are brought in respect of some (but not all) allegations made or against some (but not all) possible suspects
a single charge or charges are terminated but another charge or related charges continue
proceedings against one or more defendants are terminated but related proceedings against other defendants continue
a single charge or charges are substantially altered but proceedings continue
some charges are left to lie on file
we offer no evidence
the victim has not had any contact with us prior to the decision being made

If you wish to use your right to review, you must submit this request within three months of the date of the decision notification.

You should include the following information in your request to review:

name
address
preferred contact details
the team working on the case in The Pensions Regulator (if known)
details of the case in which you are the victim
the reason why you believe the decision not to prosecute was incorrect

Email your request to righttoreview@tpr.gov.uk.

We will acknowledge your request to the right to review within five working days of receiving it. The reviewer independent from the original decision to end the case will then assess all the information we have about the request.

We will write to tell you of our findings within 40 working days. If it takes longer than this we will inform you of progress, the reasons for any delay and when we will reply in full.

In our response we will:

explain our findings under the right to review
explain why we originally chose not to prosecute
state whether the right to review is upheld or not

If the right to review is upheld, you will be made aware of this and the case will be reopened.

If the right to review is not upheld we will explain why in our response.

The decision of the review procedure is final. However, if you are unhappy with our response, you have a right to complain under right 12 of the Victims’ Code.

Making a complaint under the Victims’ Code

If we have taken on a criminal investigation and you don’t believe your rights under the Victims’ Code are being met by us, you can make a complaint by sending an email to complaints@tpr.gov.uk.

We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days of receiving it. We will then review all the information we have about your complaint under the Victims Code.