Yorkshire-based Briggs Murray Financial Planning & Wealth Management and Newcastle-based Whitebridge Financial Planning have been declared in default by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Both firms were associated with claims related to British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) members.

The companies were declared in default yesterday.

The FSCS said both have open claims regarding BSPS transfers.

Whitebridge Financial Planning was founded in January 2011 by Keith William Welsh and stopped trading in October 2018 as the result of insolvency proceedings started in 2017.

Briggs Murray Financial Planning was a pension specialist firm founded in October 2016 and was dissolved in October 2021.

The Financial Planning firms are the latest in a raft of advice firms declared in default by the FSCS as a result of BSPS claims.

Earlier this month West Yorkshire-based Keywood Olley & Associates Ltd was declared in default by the FSCS after at least one BSPS claim. 

The firm traded under three names: Keywood Olley & Associates, North East Mortgages and EMH Financial Planning.

For the sector as a whole, up to 31 March the FSCS had received 1,384 claims for BSPS transfers with some 781 claims completed. The FSCS has so fair paid out paid compensation for claims against 34 firms.

In 2017, many British Steel workers were advised to transfer out of their defined benefit pension into a defined contribution pension, typically a personal pension or a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). The scandal has attracted national attention and criticism. The FCA recently said that it was looking at 343 advice firms involved in BSPS claims and was expecting to pay out over £70m in compensation.

The FSCS said that by transferring to a private pension arrangement, the BSPS victims would have potentially lost benefits already built up in the British Steel Pension Scheme.

Earlier this week the Financial Conduct Authority used emergency powers to block many of the financial advice firms who gave advice to members of the BSPS from selling assets to avoid paying compensation.

The FCA has introduced emergency rules this week without consultation because of the risk that some firms will take steps to get rid of their assets if the rules were consulted on first.

In recent months the FCA has blocked a number of advice firms individually from disposing of assets.