You will no doubt recall that, back in February, the Pension Schemes Act 2021 (the “Act”) finally became law. The Act changes the pensions landscape quite drastically and one way it did this was to extend the Pensions Regulator (“tPR”)’s contribution notice (“CN”) regime.
What changed in a nutshell?
tPR
The anticipation is over! The Pension Schemes Act 2021 received Royal Assent and became law on 11 February. The Act aims to enhance the security and sustainability of pensions in the UK, and to protect defined benefit (“DB“) pension schemes. The Act makes some significant changes to the pensions world, most of which will be brought into effect and fleshed out through Regulations and guidance from the Pensions Regulator (“tPR“). This blog briefly sets out the key provisions of the Act from an employer’s perspective.
Continue Reading The Pension Schemes Act 2021 – What employers need to know
With the increased focus on governance of trustee boards and the Pensions Regulator (the “Regulator“)’s expectation of skilled, engaged and diverse trustee boards being led by an effective chair, the selection of the “right” trustees is becoming even more important. As employers will often be responsible for appointing trustees to trustee boards, you will find below four factors employers may want to take into account before appointing any new trustees.
Continue Reading Trustee Board Selection – What Do Employers Need To Think About?
On 25 June 2020, the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill (the “Bill”) received Royal Assent and on 26 June 2020 CIGA came into force. The restructuring team in Mayer Brown’s London office have previously commented on the different elements of the Bill in a series of blog posts and podcasts. CIGA was swiftly followed by the introduction of The Pension Protection Fund (Moratorium and Arrangements and Reconstruction for Companies in Financial Difficulty) Regulations 2020 (the “Regulations“), which came into force on 7 July and were subsequently amended yesterday on 23 July. Now that CIGA is in force, we take a closer look at the legislation from a pensions perspective.
Continue Reading The UK Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“CIGA”) from a Pensions Perspective
For a few years now, the Government has been considering ways to enhance the security and sustainability of pensions in the UK, and to protect defined benefit (“DB“) pension schemes. These considerations were documented in the Pension Schemes Bill. Due to lack of Parliamentary time (aka a little thing called Brexit and the general election), the Bill was put on hold but remained very much on everyone’s minds. The Committee Stage in Parliament began last week, so now seems like a good time to refresh our memories about the key provisions of the Pension Schemes Bill from an employer’s perspective.
Continue Reading The Pension Schemes Bill – What employers need to know
With the introduction of automatic enrolment, increasing longevity, and employees focusing on the full benefit package offered by an employer, rather than just salary, an employer’s pension offering is under the spotlight. However, despite the increased relevance, the difference between types of pension scheme is not always clear. So, what are the key differences between a workplace trust-based pension scheme (“Trust Scheme“) and a workplace contract-based pension scheme (“Contract Scheme“)?
Continue Reading To trust or not to trust, that is the question
The qualifying earnings bands for the purposes of automatic enrolment are due to increase on 6 April 2019. For the tax year 2019/2020, the lower qualifying earnings threshold will be £6,136 (instead of £6,032) and the upper qualifying earnings threshold will be £50,000 (instead of £46,350). The old faithful earnings trigger will continue to remain stable at £10,000.
Why is this important?
Since October 2012, employers have had to make arrangements for certain workers in the UK to be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme that satisfies certain conditions (a qualifying scheme). Very broadly, workers fall into one of three categories (summarised below).Continue Reading New year, new rates… of automatic enrolment qualifying earnings