§ Mr. Terry DavisTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the average time taken for the Government Actuaries Department to complete the headroom check where a pensions mis-selling case involves excess contributions; and if he will make a statement. [109220]
§ Mr. Andrew Smith[holding answer 8 February 2000]: The information requested cannot be obtained without disproportionate cost. The Government Actuary's Department (GAD) has no general responsibility for work on compensating victims of pensions mis-selling, but it does provide actuarial services to a number of public service pension schemes whose members were mis-sold personal pensions in the past. In most of the main public service pension schemes the number of cases involving excess contributions is relatively small, and the normal procedures for carrying out headroom checks have been applied without causing delay. In the Teachers' Pension Scheme there has been a large number of such cases and new procedures are being implemented to allow the scheme administrators (Capita Teachers' Pensions) to carry out most of the calculations using tables supplied by GAD. This should allow speedier processing.