Recommendation 6

None of the information government provided to scheme members told them the government guarantee would be lost if they transferred their accrued benefits into the new pension scheme.7 We asked GAD why members were not told this, and whether the note it had provided at the time was therefore misleading. GAD said it did not believe the note was misleading, and that it was intended to assist members with making decisions over their pensions rather than be financial advice which members could depend upon. GAD noted that while the information provided to members did not tell them the new scheme would not have a government guarantee, it had never indicated that the new scheme would still have one either. GAD also argued that some information provided made references to the possibility that the scheme could fail.8 However, those same references also stated that pension scheme assets are protected in law.9