The year ahead for the Pensions Regulator

A top priority will be implementing mastertrust authorisation. Auto-enrolment has resulted in significant growth in the mastertrust market. With the consultation on the Department for Work and Pensions’ regulations completed, attention will turn to our code of practice, which we will publish for consultation shortly. We have long been calling for a higher bar to entry to this market, which authorisation will provide.

From October, mastertrusts that intend to remain in the market will have to get authorisation from us. We will assist those that either do not apply or fail to meet the standards to leave the market, minimising the impact on savers.

Fighting scams and improving governance

Auto-enrolment has been a great success and has transformed the pensions landscape, but the work continues. From February, every employer will have pension duties and must enrol all qualifying staff into a pension scheme. They must also make regular payments for their staff into these schemes.

We will work to ensure employers continue to meet their duties, including re-enrolling staff every three years and complying with the minimum contributions increase to 5 per cent in April.

Elsewhere, the fight against pension scams continues. We are working closely with other agencies to stop criminals and protect savers. We will work even more closely with the Financial Conduct Authority and other partners to help consumers avoid scams.

For a number of reasons, defined benefit pensions have been making the news. We await with interest the government’s white paper on ways of strengthening the DB funding framework.

Improving governance and administration in pension schemes will remain a key area, including our continuing 21^st Century Trusteeship work and enforcement action against schemes unwilling to meet the required standards.

Trustees must assess Brexit impact

We are working with the DWP and industry partners to identify and, where appropriate, address any risks and challenges arising from the UK’s exit from the EU. Immediate, significant change to the current regulation framework is unlikely, but we will make sure that we are equipped to manage change effectively. We will provide guidance to trustees as necessary.

In the meantime, we expect trustees and scheme managers to consider, as part of their integrated risk management, if Brexit may affect their sponsoring employer and the funding of their scheme.  

Here at the regulator we need to ensure that we remain effective, efficient and able to respond to the challenges we face. We have set out our intention of being clearer, quicker and tougher via our TPR Future programme, and you can expect us to say more about this later in the year.

Lesley Titcomb is chief executive of the Pensions Regulator