In most cases, this is unlikely to be a practical possibility at the moment.
This is because the bulk of members have invested their pension pots in corporate bonds that are yet to mature. The size of the schemes' holdings makes it difficult for us to realise these into cash, or indeed to force the situation with the issuer.
There is an additional issue in that most members have had some or all of their interest payments invested by the former trustee, Mr Mark Harris, into 7-year arrangements via Green Asset Solutions (who specialise in providing energy saving assets for local government).
Unfortunately, one group of members invested their pension pots via GFI Consultants Ltd, which has proven to be fraudulent. This complicates matters.
Members have a statutory right to take what is termed a "cash equivalent transfer value". This however is only the realisable value of your benefits. In other words, it doesn't allow you to take as cash those investments that we cannot turn into cash currently, or indeed those investments whose value has been lost (i.e. GFI).
The exceptions are most members of the Fixed Income 2012 Scheme. These were generally invested in Bonds that have already matured. There are still questions to resolve concerning scheme administration. We have however been able to return the bulk of monies for individual members as a 'partial transfer value' on request.