Teachers' Pensions Reviews 

BBC Money Box 11 April 2026 - the debacle that is Teachers Pensions. Likely only say government is working to address problems as is their default response with no definitive timescale but I am thankful it is in the public domain ahead of the forthcoming council elections.

Extremely poor service experience. Waited on the phone far too long and then gave up. Not for the first time! What's the point? Nothing will change. At the very least offer a call-back service.

Absolutely hopeless. I won't detail the catalogue of misinformation, poor communication, being told something different every time I contact them, telling me I should have received messages that were never sent, endless filling in different forms etc etc etc. They just don't seem to know what they are doing! I don't think I've ever had the misfortune to deal with such a poorly organised shambles of an organisation in my life. Absolutely dire.

This is an update to a 5* review I written October 2024...
I am writing this update to express my absolute frustration with the ongoing lack of service. Since my last review, the situation has only deteriorated.

The Highlights of My Experience:

Inaccessible Support: Trying to get through is a nightmare. After waiting over 20 minutes in a queue, the Live Chat simply disconnected without a word.

Contradictory Information: I am being told different things by every agent I speak to. One representative provided a specific date for my payment, but the next told me that due to a "backlog," they have no deadline and no idea when I’ll receive my money.

Significant Delays: I am still waiting on an underpayment that has been pending since September 2025.

It is deeply concerning that a company can hold onto funds for over six months and then claim they "can't say" when the issue will be fixed. The "no deadline" excuse is simply not professional.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for consistency or timely support, look elsewhere. Still waiting for a resolution that feels further away than ever.

Following on from earlier poor experiences with this organisation (run by Capita, who have recently been rewarded for their poor service standards by being given the Civil Service Pension contract) I decided to take an early reduced pension last year. Wary of previous dealings with TPS, I have recorded all my interactions with them. After 25 contacts with them in 2025, I was eventually given my pension choices in Oct 2025. I made choices based on the values presented to me. In Dec 2025, TPS wrote to me to tell me that the lump sum they would pay me on 1st January was now £10,000 higher than originally quoted. I queried this and was told twice by phone, and also in writing that their new calculation was correct. I was paid this higher amount on 1st Jan 2026.
Two weeks later TPS contacted me to say that they had made an overpayment of £16,000 (nearly 25%) and they wanted back the extra money, plus some of the sum that was originally promised back when I made my pension choices in 2025. There then followed 3 months of hesitant, contradictory communications (at least 12 contacts) and complaints left unanswered within promised timescales.
Finally on 25.03.26 I got a "final response" stating that: their new figures were correct, they had applied the wrong formula back in October 2025, there was nothing they could do and if I didn't like it, I should complain to the DfE.
Two days after the "final response", I got a new letter, re-calculating my pension, this time with a lump sum alteration £1500 to my benefit, although I still need to repay £14,500. There was no explanation of what had triggered this change and no response from TPS when I queried this.
I am particularly enjoying being periodically sent marketing emails from TPS saying "hope you're enjoying your retirement - we're here to help" accompanied by photos of grey haired men swimming with dolphins.
Ah well, onto the next level of complaints, or maybe my MP or the press would be a better route? If I die before TPS resolve this mess I have asked for my children to cremate me with all my correspondence with TPS - what a bonfire that will be ! ❤️

Has anyone, or is anyone interested in starting a civil case against TPS?
I have today rung TPS again and queried a broken Shared Pension Order (in 2022) whereby the whole amount was mistakenly paid to my ex husband nearly two years ago, and they maintain they are still trying to ‘work out the numbers’ due to transitional protection.
Having contacted my MP, to no avail, the police have suggested a civil case - a broken Shared Order is a break in law.

I have been trying to claim death payment benefits following the recent death of my wife who was a Teachers Pensions member. I sent them the claim form and certified copies of the Death Certificate and our marriage certificate. Spoke today on phone to one of their agents who said the claim had not been processed yet as I had sent copies of the documents. I pointed out that the Registrar had the original documents and I had purchased a certified copy to deal with administering my wife's estate. I got absolutely nowhere. Have since tried to send email but not sure this has worked. The email address they provided seems to not be functioning. The website, email, and phone seem to be hopeless. Have now tried letter to Head of Operation s. Absolute nightmare.

Ha...being generous as they don't even deserve 1!!! Finally, after waiting over 12 months for my transitional application to be sorted, I got an email stating that it would be processed within the next 10 working days. Not surprisingly, 10 working days later... nothing! Contacted them to be told it's just a generic email that goes out and recalculations need to be made that are complex, so takes time. What a joke! If they just processed applications when they received them, there wouldn't be any need for recalculations. DUR!!! Bet they don't take into account the interest that could have been attained in the 12+ months that they've had my completed forms!!!! Absolutely useless!

Having listened to goodnes knows how many "press 1/2", gave up when on top of all that I was number 17 in the queue.

My wife a Teacher Passed away 6 months ago. She took early retirement due to terminal illness. I have had 3 emails and no other communication from them. I have called 3 times and they confirm they have all the documents needed, but can not give a clear indication when they will sort my pension. Bad communication and slow process.

I have been waiting 3 months for a reply to my query, phoned up and they said the Benefits Team have "no timescales in terms of getting back to people". Reading the comments on here it's just frightening how bad it is.

I am due to retire this year but am unable to view my benefit statement. I have used the ‘contact us’ facility within Pension Online but have yet to receive any acknowledgement of my issue let alone a reply. The same thing happened in 2024 and 2025.
I’m dreading the mess that Tata will inherit when they finally take over from Capita in the summer. Another failed outsourcing endeavour from UK Gov.

So far, it has taken me approximately a year to claim my pension. I still don't have it. They have been sending notifications to my account on their website without sending a message to my email inbox. I have been instructed to fill in various forms and was under the impression that there were no more to fill in. I logged in to my TP account last week and found a notification that had been there since January asking me to fill in yet another form. I requested that this form be sent in the post so I could fill it in by hand. Today, an envelope arrived with a polite covering letter, but they had forgotten to enclose the form I had requested. I've almost given up, but they owe me money!

UPDATE: Yes, I'm still waiting at 17.03.26. I hadn't heard anything from them so decided to check the website, and sure enough there was ANOTHER message telling me I needed to fill out something else in order for my claim to proceed. I had no notification in my gmail inbox of this (once again) even though I pointed this out to them, so this message could have sat there for weeks before I saw it. I'll be phoning them this morning as soon as they are open. I am so angry.

I am really disappointed with this service. I now live overseas and I did not receive a hard copy of a document to confirm that I was still alive nor did I receive on email that I had mail on my account. I admit I never go to My Pensions site. I rang on Monday and waited on an overseas line for 30 minutes. I was told it would come back to me the next day . It is now Thursday and no pension payment and no correspondence. I have written again to the contact which stated it would reply the same day. Still nothing. I tried uploading the document a number of times but it said it was fake. I have now posted the required document. We no longer have a postal service as such in Denmark and I believe the UK is also having difficulties with letters. I rely on my monthly pension payment and feel the Teachers Pensions authority has let me down.

This company needs overhauling and the processes need a review to the extreme. No one responds to queries, letters or emails you’re asked to send. The security system is harder to get into than skinny jeans straight out the dryer. It seems no number of complaints or reviews will change this so I suggest a direct complaint to the DfE for anyone reading this.

Delays in issuing RSS statements are unacceptable. I have been retired 3 years and still not received my statement. In their latest response to RSS delays they are supposed to have issued all statements by the end of March 2026. I have no doubt they will keep putting this date forward again another 6 months.

I am trying to fill in my retirement form for August having been told that I need to do this 6 months in advance. I am now being asked to make a decision about increasing my lump sum, but I am being denied access (yet again!) to the personalised calculator on the website in order to make an informed choice. I cannot submit my form until I sign a declaration about the lump sum choice saying that my decision is irrevocable. I feel like I'm living in a real-life catch 22 from which there is no escape. I used to hang on the phone for hours only to be cut off. Now, the call is answered but nobody has a clue. I just get told it's 'planned maintenance of the website' and to try again later. I'm already convinced that I won't receive my pension by the time I retire, so I'm currently stocking up on blankets and tinned food to keep me going through the bleak times ahead. If I am in a profession where my every move is scrutinised (one of the many reasons I'm leaving earlier than I planned), why is my hard-earned pension with a company that nobody is monitoring? What an absolute joke.

Repeatedly tried to engage with this company over my father's pension as he has dementia. Despite me having an LPA ad sending the evidence to them multiple times, it took a year to get a response. My father died by the time they then sent a letter which made no sense. Now I am trying to understand what this letter means as it makes no sense. My family may be owed unclaimed pension, but this company either refuse to speak to me or cut me off! Terrible

I can't begin to describe how much distress this system has caused me. I got divorced over 6 years ago and am still waiting for my pension to be shared. The communication, or lack thereof that has occurred during this process has been appalling, as has the lack of accountability for the severe detriment to my mental health wrought by this pathetic service.

Staggeringly awful, TPS operate at such a level of incompetence that you almost want to applaud them, how is it possible for an organisation to be this bad and still allowed to function?