More than 150 complaints have been lodged with The Pensions Ombudsman relating to the British Steel Pension Scheme.

The Ombudsman reported that it was “currently investigating” a group of complaints about transfer values. Officials said they would soon be undertaking another probe where members have complained about the PPF early retirement rules.

An Ombudsman statement said: “We continue to receive new complaints and a high volume of enquiries from members and their representatives. As such, we anticipate further complaints regarding the expected BSPS transfer into PPF.

“We are working closely with the trustees of the BSPS to ensure that all those members who wish to bring a complaint to us are able to do so as easily as possible.

“Before we will consider any of these complaints, we decided that the complaint must have been raised with the trustees and dealt with under the internal dispute resolution procedure (IDRP).

“Following the huge increase in IDRP complaints being made, the trustees have implemented an accelerated one stage IDRP for members wishing to complain about either their transfer values or the early retirement factors applied to their pension benefits.

“The trustees have dealt with over 200 complaints under this accelerated procedure and the majority of these members have now brought their complaints to us.”