The Financial Assistance Scheme
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The Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) offers help to some people who have lost out on their pension because they were a member of an under-funded defined benefit scheme that started to wind-up between 1 January 1997 and 5 April 2005, and either:
- their employer has been unable to make up the shortfall because they are insolvent or no longer exist;
- or a compromise agreement is in place between the employer and the scheme, so enforcing the debt against the employer would have forced the employer into insolvency;
- or on wind-up the employer was still solvent and any debt the employer was obliged to pay to the scheme had been paid (or a sufficient proportion had been paid) but that wasn't enough to secure members' benefits in full.
The scheme is managed by the Department for Work and Pensions and is administered by the FAS Operational Unit (FAS OU). It makes payments to top up scheme benefits to eligible members of schemes that are winding-up or have wound-up.
Assistance is also payable to the survivor of a pension scheme member.
You can read further information about eligibility for the Financial Assistance Scheme.