Number of wind-up reports submitted by DB schemes
FOI reference - FOI-418
Date - 16 October 2025
Request
I understand that if a defined benefit scheme has commenced wind-up but not completed it within two years, it is required to submit a wind-up report to The Pensions Regulator.
Please can you provide, for each calendar year available, from 2005 up to the most recent available year, the number of defined benefit pension schemes that have submitted a wind-up report to the Pensions Regulator (as their wind-ups are taking longer than 2 years).
If the full time series is too extensive to provide, I would appreciate the longest time series you can provide, working back from the current date (so 2020 to 2025, say, or 2015 to 2025, etc).
Response
I confirm that we hold some of the information you have requested. However, some of the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure.
Please note that the data goes back to the year 2009. Online reporting by schemes was introduced in 2007/08. To compile the numbers from 2005 to 2008, it would exceed the appropriate cost limit of the FoIA. Please consider that the large number of schemes submitting a report in 2010 is likely impacted by this change in processes.
All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10. This may mean that the number of schemes may not be an exact count. The figures do not exclude schemes marked as 'Gone away' or 'Not registrable'. These are schemes which might incorrectly be registered with TPR, have stopped communicating with TPR or which might have reduced their membership to below 2 members. Since this may indicate schemes that are winding or wound up, we’ve chosen to include them in the analysis, as it focuses on winding-up schemes and their transitions.
Number of defined benefit schemes that have submitted a wind-up report
| Calendar year | Number of reports |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 30 |
| 2010 | 120 |
| 2011 | 60 |
| 2012 | 20 |
| 2013 | 20 |
| 2014 | 20 |
| 2015 | 10 |
| 2016 | 10 |
| 2017 | 10 |
| 2018 | 10 |
| 2019 | 10 |
| 2020 | 10 |
| 2021 | 10 |
| 2022 | 10 |
| 2023 | 10 |
| 2024 | 20 |
| 2025 (as of 31st Oct) | 10 |
Exemptions
Under section 12 of the FoIA, public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information where the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit in the Fees Regulations1. This, for TPR, is set at £450. Staff costs are fixed at £25 per person per hour. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether we hold the information, locating, retrieving, and extracting it. For the reasons outlined above we have not been able to provide figures before 2009.