Tribunal tide turns against Regulator

A couple of recent First-tier Tribunal (FTT) rulings contain surprising judicial responses to the Pensions Regulator’s compliance and enforcement practices in automatic-enrolment cases. In both cases, the employers contended that they had not received the notices sent to them by the Regulator—and were successful. (There’s another FTT reversal, on a different subject, elsewhere in this month’s news.)

Chair’s statement fining not fully mandatory

In a recent decision about the annual governance (Chair’s) statement requirements for money purchase schemes, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) has pushed back against the Pensions Regulator’s interpretation of the law. The FTT judge rejected the Regulator's argument that the imposition of penalties for statement breaches is entirely automatic under the legislation. The trustee’s success on that point may be cold comfort to him, however, as the fine in this case was upheld.

Ombudsman falls back to ‘IDRP-first’ position

A blog post written by Dominic Harris, the Pensions Ombudsman, gives the outcome of a review of his office’s operating model. It foreshadows a return to insisting that members attempt to resolve problems via their schemes’ internal dispute resolution processes (IDRPs) before turning to the Ombudsman for help.

Public sector update

Updates on the McCloud tax newsletter and staff transfers. 

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