Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967
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Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
State earnings-related pension scheme (SERPS) inheritance provisions: redress for maladministration
Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967
I am laying before Parliament under section 10(4) of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 this further report which sets out my consideration of the proposals made by the Department of Social Security (DSS) to amend the rules governing the entitlement of widows and widowers to inherit their late spouse's additional pension under the state earnings-related pension scheme (SERPS). On 15 March 2000 I laid before Parliament a report of my investigations into four complaints that DSS and the Benefits Agency (BA) gave misleading and inadequate information about changes introduced by the Social Security Act 1986 and which affected the inheritance rules of SERPS (3rd Report for Session 1999-2000, HC305). I found that the department and the agency were guilty of maladministration; and I undertook to publish a further report dealing with the issue of redress for that maladministration when circumstances permitted. I now do so in the light of the Government's proposals announced by the Secretary of State for Social Security on 29 November 2000, which I understand are shortly to be put before Parliament in the form of the Social Security (Inherited SERPS) Regulation 2001, to be made under the provisions of section 52(8) of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999.
MS BUCKLEY
Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
February 2001
