The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report on the Atomic Energy Agency (AEA) Technology pension case following interest from members of parliament, looking at the scheme's restructure in 1996 and subsequent issues faced by members.

AEA Technology, the commercial arm of the UK AEA, was privatised in 1996, with scheme members therefore no longer eligible to continue paying into the UKAEA public sector scheme.

At this time, the 1995 Atomic Energy Authority Act, which facilitated the privatisation of the new body, also addressed pensions, requiring the company’s new scheme to be "no less favourable" than the previous UKAEA scheme for transferred staff.

Scheme members were subsequently given the option to either leave preserved pension benefits in UKAEA pension scheme, transfer benefits into a personal pension, or transfer their benefits into the new AEAT scheme; an offer available for only one month.

AEAT and the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) also provided information to scheme members to outline their options and the main factors to consider in deciding whether to transfer accrued benefits.

The NAO's report revealed that nearly 90 per cent of members later transferred their pension benefits, with some suggesting that their decisions were "heavily influenced" by information from GAD.

However, after AEAT entered into administration in 2012, the pension scheme was subsequently moved into the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), reducing the level of benefits members could expect to receive.

The NAO's report noted that scheme members have since been complaining to various parts of government since 2012.

In particular, complaints included claims that the information given in 1996 was misleading, and the legal promise to ensure the benefits were no less favourable than the previous pension should include the government guarantee.

Indeed, the NAO found that whilst GAD’s information did not seek to compare levels of risk, but said the pension benefits promise was unlikely to ever be broken by either scheme.

In addition to this, none of the information government or AEAT provided included the fact that the new scheme would not be backed by a government guarantee.

However, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) previously produced a factsheet on behalf of itself and other parts of government in July 2013, which stated that the benefits promise did not include any government guarantee, and that the information from GAD was not intended as advice and did not seek to compare levels of risk.

Following scheme members’ dissatisfaction with these responses, the government advised that they should refer their complaints to ombudsman services for independent review.

The NAO's report confirmed that some aspects of scheme members’ complaints have been reviewed; for example, The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) found that the Atomic Energy Authority Act 1995 did not provide statutory protection for the AEAT pension scheme, and that scheme trustees acted reasonably when managing the impact of AEAT’s insolvency on the scheme in 2012.

However, the NAO clarified that complaints regarding the information provided to help members make their decisions have not been reviewed, as bothTPO and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman were unable to investigate the complaints about the information government provided in 1996 because it was outside their statutory jurisdictions.

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