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.
The Pension Schemes Act 2026 contained the framework for changes to pooling and governance arrangements in relation to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). The pooling regulations and governance regulations provide the details and came into force on 30 June 2026. To accompany these regulations, the government has now published statutory guidance relating to asset pooling, statutory guidance relating to the preparation and maintenance of an investment strategy statement and statutory guidance in relation to fund governance.
Gaucho Rasmussen, executive director, enforcement and legal group at The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has issued a blog post urging trustees, administrators and pension providers to respond to the Department for Work and Pensions’ consultation on amendments to the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Conditions for Transfers) Regulations 2021 (which we covered in a previous update). The blog post highlights how the proposed changes to regulations are intended to help with the fight against pension scams. The consultation closes on 21 July 2026.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a press release alongside its report on insurance firms’ price and value practices for unit-linked non-workplace pensions and savings. Although positive steps are being taken by many firms, the FCA finds that legacy pension products often deliver poorer value compared with newer arrangements, with higher charges and lower investment returns. The FCA sets out its expectations for improvements, saying “we expect firms to engage with us where they believe that legal, regulatory, taxation or other practical barriers affect their ability to deliver.”
The Pensions Dashboards programme has issued a blog post highlighting the findings of an independent evaluation report on how the dashboards connection process has worked in practice. The evaluation identifies seven lessons to inform future connection activity, including setting more realistic and transparent timeframes for connection and improving the availability of testing environments.
TPR has published its annual report and accounts 2025 to 2026. The report sets out TPR’s performance in meeting its corporate priorities against the backdrop of new requirements under the Pension Schemes Act 2026 and TPR’s commitment to evolving its regulatory approach.
In a House of Lords debate on 30 June, Lord Livermore, financial secretary to the Treasury, said that the government would review accessibility to private pension savings in the event of terminal illness. It was noted during the debate that while individuals with a life expectancy of less than 12 months may already take a serious ill health lump sum at any age (subject to medical evidence and scheme rules), owing to medical advancements it is harder for medics to estimate that life expectancy will be less than 12 months. This means that potentially fewer terminally ill pension scheme members will be granted a serious ill health lump sum than Parliament had originally intended. Lord Livermore said that the government would also consider during its review the fact that early access rules vary between schemes.
Legislation has been made that will bring into force TPR’s Code of Practice: Authorisation and supervision of collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes on 31 July 2026. The existing code will be revoked from the same date.
Labour & Employment partner, David Whincup, looks at options for dealing with employee grievances that have been drafted using artificial intelligence, in this blog post.
If you would like specific advice on any of these issues or anything else, please contact a member of our Pensions team.
