The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) today published its 2025/26 Annual Report and Accounts detailing its success in delivering against its strategic priorities and business plan objectives over the past year.
The PPF, which celebrated 10 years since it insourced its member services operations, continued to deliver outstanding levels of service last year. Member satisfaction remained high, with a score of 97.4 per cent, exceeding the PPF’s 90 per cent target. It paid £1.2bn in compensation payments to PPF members.
During the year, the PPF completed 37 Fraud Compensation Fund (FCF) claims, including some highly complex cases, resulting in payments of more than £100 million and benefiting over 2,770 people.
Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, the PPF’s growth portfolio delivered a strong 7.1 per cent return, outperforming its five-year rolling target. This added £1.3bn to the PPF’s future claims and risk reserves which, as at 31 March 2026, stood at £15.1bn. The PPF’s assets under management rose to £31.5bn.
The PPF achieved considerable success acting in the interests of those it protects. The Pension Schemes Act 2026 contained six measures which deliver benefits for PPF and Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) members, and the remaining 5,000 DB pension schemes it protects.
Significantly, it enables the PPF to pay increases, up to 2.5 per cent, on benefits accrued before 1997 where members’ former schemes provided for it. This change will benefit more than 300,000 PPF and FAS members. The PPF is progressing the substantial preparatory work needed so it can pay pre-97 increases to eligible members starting from January 2027. This week, it has begun directly contacting the 300k members to confirm their eligibility. The estimated £1.4bn financial impact to the PPF from this change will be applied to its funding position in 2026/27.
The Act additionally gave the PPF greater flexibility to reduce the PPF levy. This enabled the PPF to confirm it will not charge the c.5,000 conventional DB schemes a levy in 2025/26 or 2026/27. The Act also abolished the PPF Administration Levy, which will not be charged to schemes from 2026/27. These changes save millions for schemes whilst enabling the PPF to manage risks responsibly and move towards being self-funding.
Acting PPF Chief Executive Officer, Richard Beaven, commented: “We’ve made excellent progress in the past year delivering on our core purpose, protecting members, and on our business priorities. Last year we focused on protecting members’ interests, delivering high standards of service, maintaining our financial resilience, and strengthening the organisation for the future. As our focus now shifts to implementing the significant package of PPF and FAS changes from the Pension Schemes Act, the groundwork we’ve put in place means we’re on track to deliver. As we embark on an important year of delivery ahead, we will continue to work collaboratively with all our stakeholders.”
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