Pensions Weekly Update – 4 August 2021

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Here is our weekly summary of key legal and regulatory developments relevant to occupational pension schemes, which you might have missed, with links for further information.

The Pensions Administration Standards Association, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and the Association of British Insurers are collaborating to develop industry standards for pension dashboards data matching. The group aims to agree conventions that will work across all pension schemes, including the state pension, public and private sector schemes (in-house and third-party administered), master trusts and all types of commercial providers. The ability to correctly match individuals logging onto a dashboard with their pensions records is fundamental to the success of the project. The group is working closely with administration software providers for workable solutions but emphasises that its work will not resolve all data matching challenges – trustees and pensions providers need to ensure that their data and technology are dashboard ready. In the meantime, the Pensions Dashboards Programme has announced the names of seven large pensions providers that will connect to the dashboards ecosystem from late 2021, ready for the Alpha phase of testing in early 2022.
The government is facing increased pressure to act more urgently to prevent pension scams. The Treasury and Work and Pensions committees have asked the prime minister to include paid-for online advertisements in the Online Safety Bill due to the weight of feeling expressed by those giving evidence to the committees. The government currently plans to consult on measures to tackle fraud committed through paid-for online advertising (including advertisements for pensions products) later this year.
The Pensions Regulator has been busy working through responses to its consultation on the draft single code of practice, and we expect an interim response soon. We now anticipate that the code will come into force in the first half of 2022. Just a reminder that our quick guide contains a useful summary and some practical points for trustees.
Now that August has arrived and Parliament is taking a break, there has not been as much pensions news as usual. If you would like to catch up with your reading, take a look through our thought leadership library for lots of insight and practical tips on key pension issues. We hope that you also manage to have a refreshing break over the summer and we look forward to catching up with all of our contacts in the autumn, whether virtually or, perhaps, even in person!

If you would like specific advice on any of these issues, or on anything else, please contact a member of our Pensions team.