Regulator and PPF explore partial merger

Alongside revelations the regulator is to absorb the pensions and PPF ombudsmen , Pensions Week  understands the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has also instructed it to pursue joint savings ventures with the PPF, shortly before the extent of the government cuts was announced in May.

The areas under consideration include IT, where both organisations currently pay expensive licenses for different software performing the same functions, and the bodies’ separate call centres.

The PPF’s research team into potentially vulnerable schemes could also be assimilated with the regulator’s, which already obtains similar information, with both teams’ databases also combined.

Neither body would comment on the merger plans, but they are to be spelt out in the forthcoming public bodies bill, which will be produced imminently, following the leak of a portion of its content.

Former scheme funding chief at the regulator Len Fawke (pictured), now a partner at accountants Begbies Traynor, said the existing overlap, such as the regulator collecting the PPF’s levy, could easily be expanded.

“In terms of backroom staff, you could probably make efficiencies,” he said. “Although on the active regulatory side of things there wouldn’t be a vast amount.

“I don’t think there is a great deal of downside to the idea. The PPF and the regulator do talk to each other a lot already.”

The possibility of consolidating some functions was first mooted in Paul Thornton’s 2007 report to the DWP, in which he cited IT, data collection and retentions among areas worth considering.