The Pensions Regulator is writing directly to all employers over the next four years as the automatic enrolment duties start to apply across the board, regardless of size. They have now started to give notice in writing to those small employers who are due to automatically enrol their staff in 12 months time.
If you represent a bureau or agent, your clients may ask you to help them prepare.
While the responsibility for implementing automatic enrolment lies with the employer, they are able to nominate you as their secondary point of contact. This is so that you can receive emails from the regulator with the information you may find helpful in assisting your clients to comply with their duties.
We are grateful to the Pensions Regulator for providing this form to pass on to your clients to nominate you as their secondary contact.
The role of the employer in pension scheme governance
12 August 2014
Calls are increasing for just one regulator to watch over both trustee run arrangements and contract based schemes.
We are grateful to Plansponsor for the following report:
As auto enrolment has changed the landscape of UK pension provision beyond recognition, a familiar refrain has repeated itself from certain quarters – the call for one regulator to rule them all. It doesn’t look as though this will be coming anytime soon, so in the meantime we are left with two watchdogs managing the two different types of pensions that dominate DC pensions, with the Pensions Regulator overseeing trustee run arrangements and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) responsible for contract based schemes. And the spotlight has fallen on contract-based schemes, where insurance firms manage the plans on behalf of employers, and how they can improve standards. The solution, put forward by the FCA, has been to call for independent governance committees (IGCs) and this week the watchdog launched a consultation on what these should look like. So what exactly has the FCA proposed? What do providers make of the proposals? Could this prove an unnecessary burden on providers? And who will step into the breach if these types of arrangements prove unworkable? act in the interests of relevant policyholders assess the value for money of the firm’s workplace personal pension schemes where the IGC finds problems with value for money, to raise concerns (as it sees fit) with the firm’s board escalate concerns to the FCA, alert relevant scheme members and employers, and make its concerns public, and to produce an annual report of its findings. But the FCA also recommends firms with “smaller and less complex” DC schemes be allowed to establish a Governance Advisory Arrangement (GAA) run by an independent third party. The FCA’s IGC proposals are that the bodies must:
CIPP Policy News Journal
08/04/2015, Page 334 of 521
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