From the blog: ‘Tis the season to be jolly – unless of course you’re fretting over whether your integrated risk framework will stand up to a regulatory tap on the shoulder if all those complicated value-at-risk estimates come home to roost… or a hundred other things specially designed to keep defined benefit trustees awake at night.

Of course, life at the coalface always looks and feels a bit different from the big-picture stuff – well, some of it anyway.

Twelve months ago, all those ‘what does 2015 hold for pensions’ predictions said change, change and more change.

Talking Head: Employer covenant has finally achieved the prominence it deserves in the assessment and monitoring of defined benefit scheme risks – in regulatory terms at least, following the Pensions Regulator's funding code in 2014 and its follow-up guidance this August.

Talking Head: Lincoln's Tony Hobman gives a snapshot of the current state of play with the European IORP directive – and says we may be in for a wait. 

Blog: Following last week's update to the Pensions Regulator's three-year corporate plan, here is a brief stock-take of what the world appears to look like through the lens of the regulatory telescope.

At the most strategic level, the regulator's success framework and corporate priorities are meant to "stand the test of time", so it’s good to see that its established external focus on good governance and administration, security and good outcomes for members and employer compliance, hasn’t been blown off course – even with the current rate of change across the pensions policy landscape.

But what about the layers of regulatory involvement and interest that sit below those more lofty ambitions?

Where, in practical terms, can it be expected to focus its oversight in the months ahead, let alone over the next three years?

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