As is fairly common in the UK with small-ish companies, my work has an agreement with a large pension provider to offer personal pensions to all employees. If you choose to open and pay into that personal pension, then the company contributes some money too, matching to a certain level. To reduce the work/admin overhead of this, only one pension provider is supported.
At the time of joining the scheme, I was a bit underwhelmed with the funds on offer, management charges and the like, but since the company contribution is effectively "free money" it wasn't enough to stop me enrolling. Having had some more dealings with the pension provider recently (Aviva, in case anyone wants the name of the guilty), I'm even less impressed with them. (Sending out the wrong forms, giving incorrect instructions, inability to handle basic complaints properly, that sort of thing). Given that, I don't think I want to leave most of the money with that pension provider.
What I can't do is close the pension, as that would stop the money being paid into it from work. What I was therefore thinking was to try to transfer most/all of the current funds into a SIPP with a decent provider. I could leave the current company-provided personal pension to collect future contributions, while having the bulk of the funds held (after transfer) moved into a SIPP.
I've had a look on the website of the personal pension provider about transfers, but all I can see is information on transferring pensions to them, not away from them. That makes me worried that it might not be possible.
Thus the question - can I transfer most/all of the balance from a UK Personal Pension into a UK SIPP with a different provider, whilst leaving the original personal pension open for future contributions?