Pension wise: face-to-face guidance locations revealed

Citizens Advice announces 44 bureaux that will be providing pension guidance.

Last week the Government revealed the name of its free pension guidance service: Pension wise.

Now Citizens Advice has announced the 44 bureaux that will be providing the face-to-face guidance to retirees.

Pension guidance: what we know so far

In last year’s Budget, along with his sweeping pension reforms, Chancellor George Osborne announced that all pensioners would receive free guidance on the various options open to them and their pension pots.

Since then the Government has confirmed that the guidance will be available in person from Citizens Advice and over the phone from the Pensions Advisory Service. The Treasury is also working on a Pensions wise website which will offer guidance online.

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Face-to-face guidance

The table below outlines which Citizens Advice bureaux will be offering the face-to-face guidance. You can book your guidance session at any bureau, but you will then be allotted a slot at one of these centres.

As you can see, the coverage is scattered at best. For example, if you live in Bristol you face an hour’s trip to Cardiff, Taunton or Wiltshire in order to have a chat about your pension options. Similarly if you live in Carlisle, you’ll be travelling at least an hour to either Tyneside or Darlington.

It’s also staggeringly vague. A number of locations above are simply counties. There are 20 Citizens Advice offices or outreach centres in Cornwall, for example.

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown, described the coverage as “painfully thin”.

Citizens Advice has said it will announce a small number of “extra delivery centres” soon, in order to offer guidance to the most people possible.

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What can you expect from a guidance session?

A guidance session should last about 45 minutes.

Each bureau that is offering the sessions will be appointing between three and seven members of staff to handle the guidance, depending on likely demand.

The sessions will look at what you can do with your pension pot, the different pension types and how they work, and what’s tax free and what’s not. Realistically, that’s an awful lot to get through in 45 minutes. It’s important to note that what’s on offer here is guidance, not advice. So there will be no specific personal recommendations on what you should actually do.

We know from job adverts posted by Citizens Advice that there will be two sets of people you will speak to. Your first port of call will be ‘agents’ (good numerical skills, some knowledge of pension skills are “an advantage”), while caseworkers will handle the more complicated issues.

I want to book a session

People interested in booking a session of guidance, whether over the phone or in person, can’t actually do so yet. Instead they can register their interest through the Government’s Gov.uk website.

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