Do I really need to speak to a Financial Adviser?

Nope - easy enough to transfer them, just check that none of them have any special add ons (doubtful).

Some may have benefits that are not straightforward to understand or calculate. It’s one of the few times that you can benefit from speaking to an IFA, but if you are determined try listening to the meaningful money podcasts and/or Damien talk money (obviously drilling down to the relevant episodes)

Depends on what kind of pension they are. Are they defined contribution aka money purchase schemes, or defined benefits schemes?

If the former, you can merge them all into one fairly easily. If the latter, you normally need to take advice as giving up a defined benefit (i.e. a guaranteed income) is seen as a fairly significant decision.

If they're over £30k and defined benefit IIRC you have to use a FA.

There is a point to using an IFA. They can help frame your interests and goals in a way that then helps determine what options might best suit you. Their experience and access to information may be wider than yours and thereby produce well-suited options.

Doing your own financial advice is less life-threatening and has a lower barrier to entry than, for example, doing your own brain surgery but still requires specialist knowledge and training to do well.

Your money, your choice.

I use the services of an IFA.

As footflaps said.
For each you will need to know whether it's db or dc and it's transfer value.8

Type, number and total value would probably have some bearing on this. On the low/simple end of the scale, if you are the type of person that would rather spend time on research and save a few £100 when booking a holiday, you could do it yourself.

I must admit, I’m pretty hazy on how you decide on when to get an IFA. And/or an accountant.

FYI

1 hrs free, unbiased pension info. (*limited , to I think overs 50s with dc pensions)

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-wise

towzer - that's the norm but be aware that the 'free and unbiased' information will not get into much helpful detail as that only happens after you appoint an adviser.

You don't have to, but i would.

You might find that the terms an IFA can get are better than you can get by going direct for the same thing. I found this for mortgages.

From my experience I’d say no, if you’re happy getting a SIPP platform and doing some research. I’ve had much better results choosing my own funds via Interactive Investor than I ever did when it was done by an IFA.

You might benefit from keeping them separate. Small pot pension lumps of less than £9k iirc can be taken as a single lump sum .

3 X small pots are eligible for this , within an 18 month window , again iirc.

So you put off crystalising all your money into 1  place and use the small pots uplift rules of  they fit with your retirement plans

It does depend on how big they are, given the OP uses the phrase "so small" I'm assuming less than £20k - for that sort of amount I certainly wouldn't bother with an IFA

Do you know how to:

compare charges

look at risk levels of existing and new funds

assess your own attitude to risk

consider any special terms such as protected tax free cash or guaranteed annuity rates or protected retirement ages

do you understand DB vs DC

understand what flexible retirement options the new scheme offers

compare the performance of new and existing funds

understand with profits and mva’s if applicable

passive vs active investing

and on and on

I was in this position back in March. I was in the process of being made redundant, and of an age where retirement was looking like a possibility, as I was four and a half years past retirement age, and I’d accumulated a few workplace pensions, along with two personal pensions left over from six that I’d set up to pay off my mortgage, which I’d done about three years ago.

I dug out loads of paperwork relating to as many as I could find, and started to do some adding up on the back of an envelope, figuring I could do it online, as there wasn’t much available. When I got to a figure of around £90,000, without accounting for everything, I decided I really needed help. I was given the name of an IFA, that a friend recommended, as her son had worked for them for years; (he couldn’t help, he’d moved into financial analysis), so I felt they were as trustworthy as I could get.

We went through everything I had, so they set about contacting all of the policy holders, which started to get confusing and complicated, because my policies that I’d set up for the mortgage and for later pension had changed hands, they were set up with Allied Dunbar in Swindon, then Friends Life had them when I paid off the mortgage, now the last two are with Aviva, as is my most recent workplace pension. There are others. I had to sign Letters of Authority, to allow the process to carry on. They’ve taken ages, Aviva are hopeless at communicating, but we sat down last month to make sure everything had been accounted for. It hadn’t, there were still two or three that my advisor had been informed had been dealt with and hadn’t. <br />I spoke to him on Monday, and everything now is accounted for and they’ve started the process of getting everything together to set up an annuity to top up my state pension, which turned out better than I’d hoped - I got £948/month, now £1248/month with the recent increase, plus a £13,000 lump sum! I’m hopefully looking at around £1000/month top-up to roughly match my final salary.

Oh, and it was worth re-checking all those policies again, one of the ones that had been left behind held £30,000…

There is no way on God’s green earth that I could have managed to untangle all of those policies, especially when they’ve changed hands and policy numbers had altered, I don’t know even what questions to ask, and then it’s where to put that money to get the best results for my needs. This is going to cost me about £1600, and frankly worth every damned penny, because I just know I would have missed things that would’ve lost me a lot of money, to the benefit of the likes of Aviva.

As above, if over 50 book an appointment with pensionwise (very easy to do online).

A lot of it can be done view research but unless you know what you are looking for can get caught out. I didn't pay attention when cashing in an old pension and have now been hit with a lowering of my money purchase annual allowance to £10K, i.e. I can now pay no more than £10K a year in to my pension, forever.

With the correct advice I could have just taken the tax free part, taken less than £10K etc,. to have avoided getting into that situation.

There is no way on God’s green earth that I could have managed to untangle all of those policies, especially when they’ve changed hands and policy numbers had altered, I don’t know even what questions to ask, and then it’s where to put that money to get the best results for my needs.

Off-topic for the moment, but the Money and Pensions Service are working on the Pensions Dashboards Programme…

https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/
https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/2023/09/13/why-are-pensions-dashboards-needed/

This is a solution combined with legislation that will require all pension providers and managers to connect to a single system and expose all the information they hold about their pensions. As an end user, you will be able to go to a single place, enter your personal details, and the system will go and find every single pension holding you have and display a consolidated dashboard for you.