• Regulation 8 amends the period of time in which an employer must give relevant information about the jobholder to the trustees or managers of the occupational pension scheme or personal pension scheme from one month to six weeks. • Regulation 11 introduces alternative quality requirements for UK defined benefits schemes under section 23A(1)(a) and (b) of the 2008 Act, by inserting new regulations 32L and 32M in the 2010 Regulations. The requirements under section 23A(1)(a) are that the scheme meets the quality requirement under section 20 of the Act and also meets the prescribed conditions set out in new regulation 32L. The requirement under section 23A(1)(b) is that the cost of accrual of benefits for or in respect of an active member of the scheme must be at least a specified percentage of the member’s qualifying earnings or earnings as defined in new regulation 32M. New regulation 32M provides definitions for terms used in that requirement. Regulation 13 of these regulations makes consequential changes and regulation 14 makes similar changes in respect of non-UK schemes to reflect the new requirements. • Regulations 3, 7 to 10, 12 and 15 amend the requirements imposed on employers under the 2010 Regulations with regard to the provision of information to employees, with the aim of reducing the burden to give several different pieces of information to different kinds of workers at different times. • Regulation 3 amends the enrolment information to be given to all jobholders upon automatic enrolment and re-enrolment. Regulations 6 and 7 revoke regulation 17 of the 2010 Regulations and substitute a new regulation 21 so that the information to be given to jobholders and workers about opting in or joining pension saving may be combined. The amendments made by regulations 9 and 10 reduce the information to be given to employees in the cases of transition and postponement. The amendment made by regulation 12 removes the requirement to give any information to jobholders who are already active members of a qualifying scheme. Regulation 15 amends Schedule 2 by removing a number of paragraphs and simplifying the statements of information to be given. CIPP comment In January the CIPP submitted its formal consultation response to the DWP. CIPP members broadly agreed with the proposals to simplify processes, however genuine concerns remain that unless great care is taken when forming the detailed processes, they will actually become more complicated rather than being simplified. HMRC and The Pensions Regulator will be updating their guidance to reflect the changes.
Work and Pensions Committee report progress with auto enrolment and pension reforms
18 March 2015
The Work and Pensions Select Committee has called for a single pension’s regulator and for the age at which you can cash in your retirement pot to be raised from 55 to 60.
The Work and Pensions Committee has published their fourth report 'Progress with automatic enrolment and pension reforms' which recommends that an individual regulator is required to ensure employees are protected from fraudulent activity about how to use their pension pots when changes come into force in April 2015. Pension regulation is currently a shared responsibility between the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority and the latter is not solely focused on pensions.
CIPP Policy News Journal
08/04/2015, Page 364 of 521
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