Dashboards Regulations laid in Parliament

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has laid draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 before Parliament, for the approval of each House. If the necessary affirmative resolutions are forthcoming, the Regulations will establish the obligations of trustees and managers of occupational pension schemes to connect and supply information to the dashboards system, and what is expected from those who wish to offer dashboard services.

Benchmark for statutory increases announced

The Office for National Statistics has announced the inflation figure that will form the basis for many of next year’s statutory increases. The official annual rate of inflation for September 2022, using the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure, is 10.1%.

Employer with confusing address has ‘narrow escape’

A recent Tribunal decision provides a rare example of a successful appeal against Pensions Regulator fines for auto-enrolment compliance failures. Third-party evidence of mail-delivery issues trumped a rebuttable presumption that correctly addressed correspondence is properly delivered.

A dash of consistency (standard-dash-ation?)

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has issued an updated version of the Actuarial Standard Technical Memorandum 1 (AS TM1) that governs how statutory illustrations for money purchase pensions are undertaken. The updates reflect the need to standardise the calculation methods used to estimate annual retirement income from money purchase benefits ahead of these estimates going live on pensions dashboards.

Regulator finalises policies on enforcement activity & prosecutions

The Pensions Regulator has published a new Scheme Management Enforcement Policy, and updated its Prosecution Policy, to illustrate how it expects to use new powers bestowed upon it by the Pension Schemes Act 2021. The new policies are discussed in a blog post from the Regulator’s Director of Enforcement.