Over 12,000 people now pension protection fund members

With its third anniversary under its belt, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) announced that more than 12,100 people are now receiving PPF compensation – or will receive it in the future.

By 31 March 2008, 41 pension schemes whose sponsoring employers have gone bust had transferred into the PPF after completing the PPF assessment period. This means that the PPF is paying out £1.4 million a month in compensation to those members who have already retired.

As more schemes continue to transfer, the PPF also unveiled a regular online update which will provide full details of all schemes that have transferred.

PPF Chief Executive, Partha Dasgupta, said: “We believe this announcement clearly demonstrates that we are doing what we were set up to do in April 2005.

“As we mark our third year of operations, we are not only providing compensation to an increasing number of people – but we are also sending out a message to the 12 million people still in final salary schemes that they can be confident of our protection now and in the future.”

Of the 59 schemes that have completed the PPF assessment period, 41 have transferred in, 12 were rescued (that is, a new employer has agreed to support the scheme) and six did not enter because they could pay more than PPF levels of compensation and have proceeded to buy out instead.

Of the 12,131 members now in the PPF, 3,525 are already receiving compensation, and 8,606 will receive payments when they retire. A further 225 schemes are presently in the assessment process, with more than 118,000 members.

The online update is on the PPF website at the Transferred Schemes page - pensionprotectionfund.org.uk/index/transferred-schemes.htm