The 2013-14 pensions bill is expected shortly to receive royal assent, to officially become an act of Parliament.

The act had its first reading in the commons in May 2013, just over a year ago. You can see the progress of it here.  

Its main provision is the introduction of the single-tier state pension, which will replace the current state pension and additional state pension with a flat-rate entitlement.

In April of last year we reported that the government's plans for a single-tier pension would encourage more focused thinking from employers on managing the end of contracting out.

The Act also introduces pot-follows-member pensions consolidation. It sets out a framework for the automatic transfer of small pension pots when an individual changes jobs. 

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The around £13bn Shell Contributory Pension Fund has revealed changes to the way the company will make contributions to the scheme, feeding into a wider trend that we have reported of schemes seeking to avoid trapped surpluses.

Earlier this month, the scheme wrote to members to inform them of an alternative funding method.

The method will allow the company to continue contributing directly to the scheme but payments in excess of statutory requirements will be made into the newly created Contribution Reserve Account:

Source: Shell

The company said this funding method would be better than contribution holidays, which have been used in the past but created "great volatility" in the company's payments to the scheme.

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Schemes have been reminded they cannot simply revoke decisions if a mistake has been made, after the pensions ombudsman ruled against a scheme provider that tried to claw back death benefit payments.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Pensions Regulator have today released their final mastertrust assurance framework, including reducing the number and detail of control objectives to reduce burden on providers.

The voluntary framework was set up to enable mastertrust trustees to show that their schemes are a managed to a high standard.

The industry bodies hope to answer concerns that scheme members, especially the auto-enrolment population, might not be getting a fair deal if the multi-employer schemes are not up to scratch. 

The framework sets out control governance and administration objectives for trustees to report against, which are themselves aligned with the regulator's defined contribution quality features. 

In response, concerns over the cost and height of the barriers to entry to unsuitable providers, embedded in the framework, were again raised by industry respondents. 

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Yesterday's Independent newspaper reported Lincolnshire County Council Pension Fund is leading a group of schemes in denying a conflict of interest over its £1.5m investment in French oil company Total, which is exploring shale gas exploration in the area, rendering Lincolnshire the latest scheme to have to defend publicly an underlying investment.

Total has invested £30m into two shale gas exploration sites in the county, which its local paper the Lincolnshire Echo suggested raised questions over the independence of the decision to award licenses to extract the energy source.

A spokesperson for the scheme said the investment was made about 10 years ago in a global equities mandate which is "pseudo-tracking" and so it would hold companies such as Total. 

The spokesperson said: "[The investment had] no bearing and there was no overlap between the committee and the pension. It is completely unrelated."

The scheme has approximately £1.5m invested in the oil company which is run through an external manager, the spokesperson said. 

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Schemes are considering implementing currency hedges on risky assets as investment experts predict currency adjustments after a long period of relative stability in the developed world.  

A round-up of pensions and investment stories published across the FT Group – from Gordon Brown warning of a Scottish pensions time-bomb, to an increase in interest for coco bonds.

Plus, the week in numbers:

• FTSE 100 chief executives' pay in 2013 was 120x the average earnings of employees
• Six new members were appointed to Japan's $1.25tn Government Pension Investment Fund
• Asset managers bought more than 60% of seven recent issues of coco bonds

Most popular on pensions-expert.com this week:

• SME uses investment guarantee to ensure good AE outcomes
• PPF: What our levy work means for your scheme
• Synthetic equities see interest as schemes look for creative ways to derisk
• Regulator reports sharp rise in non-compliance as AE expands
• What overseas DC systems can tell us about the post-Budget landscape

This week's social media comment picks up on the NHS's employer comms challenges.

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Defined benefit schemes are showing interest in synthetic equity strategies in order to move cash from growth portfolios to liability-matching strategies in an effort to shore up funding levels.

The retirement flexibility brought about by the Budget has left many schemes wondering how to best implement the at-retirement options introduced.