Here is our weekly summary of key legal and regulatory developments relevant to occupational pension schemes that you might have missed, with links for further information.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has published newsletter 181. This includes information on migrating over from the old pension schemes online service to the new managing pension schemes service. HMRC has set a date for closing the pension schemes online service. The service will close in April 2027, and HMRC says that it expects all schemes to be operating on the managing pension schemes service by 31 December 2026. Trustees who have not yet migrated their scheme over to the new service must act now. Failure to do so will result in their scheme being deregistered, with the consequent tax charges of up to 55%. This is not something that your third-party administrators can do on your behalf. Our blog explains what is involved, and what you need to do.
In our weekly update on 13 May 2026, we noted that The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) had published a corporate plan for 2026/27. Deborah Evans, TPO chair, has shared reflections on progress made and the challenges ahead. The blog notes that while there has been a 58% increase in complaints over a two-year period, TPO closed nearly 11,000 complaints during the last financial year, which represents a 63% increase in closures since the implementation of TPO’s operating model review programme two years ago. The blog notes that TPO will be launching an AI pilot in the next year to assist teams to progress cases more efficiently.
We recently made some updates to the journey planner at the end of our detailed Pension Schemes Act 2026 publication as a result of new intelligence. This will be further updated when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publish a new version of its roadmap of pensions developments, which we expect in the coming weeks.
Have you seen our summer hot topics in pensions? We celebrate the great British seaside and share some fun facts with you as we promenade through the top 10 pensions topics for your trustee or corporate agenda.
If you would like specific advice on any of these issues or anything else, please contact a member of our Pensions team.
