14 August 2006 - Shake-up of pensions regulation means scheduled changes will not go ahead – Purnell
As a result of a new drive to simplify pensions legislation, regulations due to come into force later this year will now not go ahead, Minister for Pensions Reform James Purnell announced today.
Draft regulations on disclosure of information were scheduled to be introduced in October. However, in its pension reform White Paper in May the DWP announced a review of regulation in order to ease the burden on employers and make it easier for them to run workplace pension schemes.
Mr Purnell said:
“Between 7m and 12m people are not saving enough for retirement, which is why we have proposed bold reforms to the pension system – including automatic enrolment into a system of personal accounts, which will particularly help lower earners.
“ But we are also committed to strengthening quality occupational provision already being offered by employers. Our goal is to help schemes thrive by reducing costs and red-tape.“
We want to take a step back and look again at the broader framework of regulation. That’s why we have decided not to go ahead with this package of regulations.
“It would not be fair to employers to bring in further requirements only for these to be changed as part of our deregulatory review.”
Notes To Editors
- A consultation on draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2006 has been completed and the regulations were due to be introduced in October. This was a wide-ranging package containing 32 regulations and 19 schedules. Areas covered included annual statements of members’ pension benefits, and the concept of information disclosure within a “reasonable time” where fixed time periods had applied previously.
- The Occupational Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 1996 (SI 1996/1655) will continue to apply.
- The Department for Work and Pensions published its White Paper on Pension Reform – Security in Retirement: towards a new pensions system, on 25th May, 2006. Copies are available at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/pensionsreform/
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