Ann Abraham, the parliamentary ombudsman, signalled yesterday that the government has delayed what is likely to be a second highly critical report from her office on government maladministration.
Abraham has told MPs and policyholders in Equitable Life that it could be a further 10 months before her report on Equitable is published - about two years late. She said the delay occurred because her office had to examine 500 pages of representations from the Treasury and Financial Services Authority on her draft report that was submitted to them last January.
Abraham said she has "now had time to digest" everything the regulators gave her, last April, and has written back to them giving them a further chance to respond to her conclusions.
She hopes to be able to tell MPs, next April, when the final report might at last appear, possibly not before the summer recess in July which would mean October.
Campaigners responded that it was now six years since £4bn was wiped off 1.5 million Equitable policies due to regulatory failure, while "Northern Rock investors were saved in six days".
Paul Braithwaite, secretary of the Equitable Members Action Group, said: "I don't doubt for a moment that the report will find the government guilty of maladministration and recommend substantial compensation - otherwise why would there have been so much shenanigans with the Treasury?"
He added: "The government are doing everything they can to resist the ombudsman's reports, while challenging her through the courts."
The delay follows the government's refusal to comply with Abraham's findings in a previous report that it was guilty of maladministration in occupational pensions. The ombudsman recommended that the government properly compensate the victims of company pension collapses that predated the Pension Protection Fund in 2005.
Her verdict was upheld by the High Court last year, in a case brought by four retired workers who lost their pensions, but the Department of Work and Pensions appealed against it in July and the judgment has yet to be published.
Meanwhile the Financial Assistance Scheme, set up to provide limited help to the 125,000 pre-2005 pension victims, is now at the centre of a reported Cabinet rift.
Peter Hain, the work and pensions secretary, let it be known at the weekend that Prime Minister Gordon Brown - as reported by The Herald last month - is resisting the findings of the FAS review that Brown himself set up when under all-party political pressure on the issue in May.
The Young review, submitted to Hain at the end of November, is said to have recommended a rescue package using largely money already in the wound-up schemes to bring the FAS into line with the PPF, but its publication has been delayed due to opposition from the Chancellor and Prime Minister.
The FAS, claimed by Brown to be "worth £8bn", has so far paid out £9m to barely 1000 people and cost £10m to run.
Ros Altmann, adviser to the Pensions Action Group, commented: "The money is there, it just needs to be paid. These people are desperate, and after Northern Rock there cannot be any more excuses. Good people are being left to have another dreadful Christmas."
The Department of Work and Pensions has said it will "consider the findings carefully and make an announcement in due course".
Braithwaite added: "Gordon Brown's stubborn refusal to do the right thing for the occupational pensioners augurs ill for next summer, when we expect the government finally to allow the (Equitable) report to see the light of day."
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