In letters between Matt Hancock, the Health and Social Care Secretary and Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, Mr. Hancock acknowledges the issue and confirms that it is too urgent to delay until after the general election and authorises a temporary measure to fix the problem for 2019-2020, but for that year only. Mr. Stevens had initially enquired whether certain payments could be made to senior clinicians outside of the pension scheme which was accepted, meaning that there would be no detrimental effect to their pensions.
There was discussion of the fix being extended to include GPs and dentists, but nothing further had been confirmed at the point of publication.
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The Pensions Regulator only recovers 30% of penalties 9 December 2019
Although enforcement activity from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has reached record highs, it has been revealed that only £18.4 million of £62.1 million that was classified as debt had been recovered at the end of March 2019. This means that only approximately 30% of penalties had been recovered by TPR. Data has revealed that there were 128,807 enforcement actions taken by the regulator up until the end of March 2019 which was a 26 percent increase on the previous year’s amount, which saw 102,497 enforcement actions. The increase in actions is believed to have been prompted by a surge in the amount of whistleblowing reports that were sent to the watchdog over that period. The enforcement actions that TPR can take include compliance notices, unpaid contribution notices, fixed penalty notices and escalating penalty notices. The most frequently used is the compliance notice, which is an order to comply with legislation, but there was a decrease in this method of four percent in 2018/19 when compared to the previous year. Unpaid contribution notices increased at the fastest rate and were used four times the amount in 2017/18 but overall compliance notices remained the most commonly used action. Failure to comply with the notice often results in a daily fine for the non-compliant party.
The head of pensions at Clyde & Co, Terry Saeedi, commented:
“With all political parties pledging funding boosts on the campaign trail, it is clear that better recovery could enable them to keep some of their promises.
Whatever the colour of the new government, it is likely to grant strengthened powers to the regulator to take action against irresponsible employers.
As the value of fines continues to increase, we can expect the regulator to look at ways to improve the collection of outstanding debts if the recovery rate does not improve.”
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New trend sees grandparents accessing pension funds to help children and grandchildren buy homes 10 December 2019
Figures show that the amount of money people over the age of 75 have taken from their private pension funds increased by 56% last year to total just under the £248 million mark.
Experts speculate that the influx in withdrawals can be attributed to the need to access money to be used to assist children and grandchildren in the purchase of their first homes or to help them to buy larger properties. The experts state that this provides an insight into the current affordability of properties, which is causing families to access retirement funds to help with house deposits.
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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