The Pensions Minister has promised Times Online readers that what the Parliamentary Ombudsman has called his department's "inaccurate, incomplete and inconsistent" advice on occupational schemes can never happen again.

The Ombudsman's report criticised ministers for weakening the regulation of company pensions and saying the Government should pay up to £15 billion in compensation to the 85,000 savers who lost their pensions when their schemes collapsed. The Government's position was to reject the Ombudsman's findings, causing outraged among thousands of Times Online readers, many of whom contributed their angry comments to our Money Weblog.

We put our readers' comments to Stephen Timms, the Pensions Minister, and asked him to address some of the specific complaints raised in our Money Weblog.

"I want to express a great deal of sympathy for those who have been affected by this," Mr Timms said.

"I have regularly met with people who have lost out as a result of the failure of some of these schemes and I have listened as they have explained to me the real distress and anxiety they are suffering.

"We set up the Financial Assistance Scheme to give support to those who are facing significant losses and in the most urgent need. We have said we will look at funding for this in the next spending review, and as the Prime Minister said, we will do this as quickly as possible.

"We are determined to ensure that this can never happen again and have taken important steps to strengthen protection for people. We have now put in place the Pension Protection Fund which will pay compensation if their employer becomes insolvent and the pension scheme is underfunded.

"However, we do not believe that the Ombudsman has made the case that the Government was guilty of maladministration. Equally, we do not accept that the taxpayer should be expected to underwrite occupational pensions."

Last week, Times Online reader Paul Burnell had written that he thought that Government ministers "should be responsible personally for this and be sued just like the homes for votes scandal".

We put this view to Mr Timms and the Department for Work and Pensions, who responded: "Official information was designed to give people a starting point and to indicate where they could get more detailed information. For a detailed explanation you have to look elsewhere – as the leaflets themselves make clear.

"This is not about abdicating responsibility, this is about ensuring that we are clear about where the responsibility lies. We do not accept that the taxpayer should be expected to underwrite occupational pension schemes."

A large number of readers wrote to the Money Weblog strongly suggesting that the shortfalls could "come out of the generous pay awards and pensions that MPs have given themselves".

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