The DPO's determination in the case of Mr Y (PO-8890) gives an indication of the Ombudsman's likely approach to liability for delay in processing a transfer value where the transferring and receiving scheme share responsibility for the delay.

In Mr Y's case, a transfer value which he requested was unnecessarily delayed by 36 days, which resulted in his transfer value being approximately £14,000 lower than it would have been had it been processed without delay. Of the 36 days total delay, 23 days was due to the transferring scheme marking the transfer as "in progress" on the ORIGO pension transfer system when the transfer was actually out of scope of ORIGO. This was only picked up when the receiving scheme chased for a response. The remaining 13 days of delay was due to a delay on the part of the receiving scheme in forwarding a discharge form to the member. The DPO split liability between the providers of the transferring and receiving scheme 64%/36% respectively, reflecting the proportion of the delay for which each was responsible. She rejected an argument that the receiving scheme bore part responsibility for the first delay for having failed to chase earlier.