So that’s what the FCA had to say but what do providers make of the proposals?
A spokesperson for Aviva said: "In the era of automatic enrolment it is essential that customers have confidence in our industry's products and services. We therefore welcome the additional oversight to be provided by the new independent governance committees."
But according to Andrew Power, financial services consulting partner at Deloitte, striking a balance between providing necessary oversight and unnecessary intervention will be crucial.
He says: “The FCA’s proposals will strengthen the governance of workplace personal pension schemes by clearly tasking IGCs to act in the interests of policyholders. The proposed new requirements for IGCs are particularly important in light of automatic enrolment, where employees become contributing personal pension policyholders without having actively chosen to do so. In order to fulfil their responsibilities it will be vital for IGCs to have access to high quality, consistent, understandable management information without imposing an unnecessary burden on pension providers.”
But what of the proposal for GAAs? Are they needed? Who will step into the breach to act as this independent third party?
Richard Butcher, chief executive of PTL Trustees, says: “If put into force as proposed they should significantly improve the outcome members achieve from their workplace personal pension plans. In our dialogue with FCA, amongst a number of ideas, we also proposed the idea of creating a standalone “outsourced” IGC function for smaller insurers. We are extremely pleased this idea has been adopted, now to be known as Governance Advisory Arrangements (or GAAs)." So whether or not we arrive at a day where there’s one regulator to rule them all it appears greater regulation of contract based schemes through independent governance committees and GAAs is inevitable.
Four million workers now auto enrolled
15 August 2014
The Pensions Regulator has published their latest monthly report on Declarations of Compliance (previously known as registration) which shows that more than four million workers have now been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension.
The announcement from the Pensions Regulator gives more details of the sort of employers who have completed their Declarations in the past month.
Workers warming to automatic enrolment
26 August 2014
Nearly three quarters of the country’s employees are now aware of the Government’s attempts to reform the workplace pensions system, according to recent research.
We are grateful to Deloittes for this report:
Ministers continue to promote their automatic enrolment scheme, with an advertising campaign featuring Dragons’ Den investor Theo Paphitis and Apprentice star Karren Brady aiming to increase people’s awareness of it. On the back of these efforts, the Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed that nearly three quarters of working-age adults now know about auto-enrolment.
CIPP Policy News Journal
08/04/2015, Page 335 of 521
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