Complaints and Concerns

Quattro Pensions was acquired by the Broadstone group in April 2021 and is now known as Broadstone Pensions Limited. You may see both names and logos used interchangeably throughout the website; this is just for cosmetic purposes, legally they are the same entity (Company Number: 06321397). Throughout the rest of this policy, it will be referred to as Broadstone Pensions Limited.

We will fully investigate every complaint about the services we provide. Even if your complaint relates to a particular policy decision or regulatory requirement and we are not able to change things, we will explain it to you.

We want to resolve your complaint as quickly as possible and, in the majority of cases, the first person you contact will be able to resolve things for you. If we are unable to do that by the end of the following business day after we receive your complaint, we will write to you. We will do this within one week to acknowledge your complaint and tell you who is dealing with it.

We will then keep you up to date while we are investigating your complaint, until we provide you with a formal resolution letter. In most cases reaching this stage, we will be able to resolve your complaint within three weeks of receiving it.

In exceptional circumstances, particularly where your complaint is complex, it may take over eight weeks to resolve matters for you. We will, however, write to you at that point to let you know you may be eligible to escalate the matter.

If you’re unhappy with our response to your complaint, you can refer the matter to an independent authority who will review your case. The section below provides further details on the Pensions Ombudsman, the Pensions Advisory Service (tPAS) & The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Types of Complaint

All UK Registered Pension Schemes must have an Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP). IDRPs differ from scheme to scheme. For any complaint we receive, the first thing we will do is establish if it is covered by your scheme’s IDRP. If it is, we will alert the Trustees and follow the steps outlined in the IDRP.

Unless you have already received one, we will provide you with a copy of your scheme’s IDRP.

If the compliant is not covered by your scheme’s IDRP it will be handled in line with our internal procedures. At this point we will establish if it relates to our Actuarial or our Administration services. It is important that we make this distinction at an early stage as not only does it ensure the matter is dealt with by the right person, it also determines the route by which you can escalate the matter if we are unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

How to complain

Complaints covered by your scheme’s IDRP should be directed to the Trustees of the scheme although, if you address it to us, we will ensure it is passed to the Trustees as soon as possible.

In this section we explain how you can raise your concerns in relation to any matter that is not covered by your scheme’s IDRP. If you are not sure whether the IDRP applies, you are still free to contact us in the same way although, where it does apply, we are obliged to follow its requirements rather than our process outlined below.

Step 1: Contacting us

The first step is to contact a member of staff. This can be done quite informally, either by letter or by telephone. Please click here for our contact details.

Usually, the best person to contact will be the one who dealt with the matter you are concerned about, as they will be in the best position to help you quickly and to put things right. If they are not available, or you would prefer to approach someone else, then please refer to one of our Managers or a Director.

We will try to resolve the problem immediately if we can. If we can’t do this, for example, because the information we need is not to hand, then we will take a record of your concern and arrange the best way and time for getting back to you. This will normally be within five working days or we will make some other arrangement acceptable to you.

If we have made a mistake you can expect the following from us:

• An apology
• Details of the steps we will take to resolve the error
• An explanation of what went wrong and how we intend to stop the same thing happening again in the future.

Step 2: Taking your complaint further

We hope that the person dealing with the matter will be able to resolve the matter to your satisfaction at an early stage. However, if you are still unhappy, the next step is to escalate your complaint to the appropriate person. For Administration issues this will be the Operations Director. For Actuarial issues it will be the Senior Actuary. If your complaint involves either of these people, the Managing Director will conduct the investigation.

You should set out the details, explaining what you think went wrong and what you feel would put things right. If you are not happy about writing a letter, you can always ask a member of staff to take notes of your complaint. You should make sure you agree with what they have recorded and that they provide you with your own copy for reference. This record will be passed promptly to the appropriate person to deal with.

Once we receive this information, the appropriate person will conduct a formal investigation into the matter with a view to resolving it to your satisfaction.

Your complaint will be acknowledged in writing within five working days of us receiving it and the letter will say when you can expect a full response. This should normally be within two weeks for Administration issues or three weeks Actuarial. However, if the matter is very complicated, such as where other organisations need to be contacted, we may need more time. We will still let you know what action is being taken and tell you when we expect to provide you with a full response.

We aim to resolve all complaints as soon as possible and will write to complainants regularly to keep them informed of the progress of their complaints.

Step 3: If you are not happy with our response.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of our investigation you can take your complaint to one of the organisations below:

For Actuarial Issues:

The Disciplinary Investigation Team
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
Level 2 Exchange Crescent
7 Conference Square
Edinburgh
EH3 8RA

Email: disciplinary.enquiries@actuaries.org.uk
Tel: +44 (0)131 240 1320

For Administration Issues:

The Pensions Advisory Service
11 Belgrave Road
London
SW1V 1RB

www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk

and/or

The Office of the Pensions Ombudsman
11 Belgrave Road
London
SW1V 1RB

www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk