Pensions Weekly Update – 9 November 2022

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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 Regulator (TPR) has issued a blog commenting on how automatic enrolment has contributed to “deep-rooted social change”. In the last decade, pensions participation has increased from 56% to 89% with an annual increase in pensions savings of around £41 billion. TPR has worked on 730,000 enforcement cases and its activity has led to more than £500 million late or missing pensions contributions being paid into schemes. TPR’s recent compliance inspections revealed a number of common errors – employers are reminded to consult TPR’s online information to ensure that they are not skipping any important steps.
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has released version 3 of its BETA framework for feedback and pilot testing. The TNFD expects to release version 4 in March 2023, and it expects to publish its finalised recommendations in September 2023. The framework follows the concept created by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, the recommendations of which are incorporated into pensions legislation and applicable to the largest pension schemes (broadly speaking, authorised master trusts, authorised collective defined contribution schemes and schemes with £1 billion or more of assets).
HMRC has published pension schemes newsletter 144, which contains a useful reminder for pension trustees to make sure that all active registered pension schemes migrate over from the old Pension Schemes Online Service to the new Managing Pension Schemes Service. This is something that pension trustees need to implement. Your scheme administrators are unable to do this on your behalf. As it might take some time to reset login details for HMRC's online service if it has not been used recently, trustees should take action now to ensure that their pension schemes remain registered. If you have any questions, please get in touch with your usual firm contact.
There has certainly been a lot of change at the Department for Work and Pensions in recent weeks! It was confirmed this week that Laura Trott, MP for Sevenoaks, has been appointed as the new Pensions Minister, following Alex Burghart’s departure.

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