Updated 3 October 2012
The Pensions Act 2008
The Pensions Act 2008 puts into law reforms to the private pension system set out in the White Paper, Personal Accounts: a new way to save published in December 2006.
- Personal Accounts: a new way to save (2.97MB)
These reforms are aimed at enabling and encouraging more people to build up a private pension income to supplement the money they will receive from their basic State Pension.
The Act only applies to Great Britain but Northern Ireland, which has its own pensions legislation, has corresponding provision in its Pension Acts 2008.
The Pensions Act 2008 – an overview
This Act contains a number of measures aimed at encouraging greater private pension saving. From 2012 it is planned that all eligible workers, who are not already in a good quality workplace scheme, will be automatically enrolled into a qualifying workplace pension scheme.
Automatic enrolment
Employers will have a duty to automatically enrol eligible workers’ between the ages of 22 and State Pension Age into a qualifying workplace pension scheme. Automatic enrolment means instead of choosing whether to join a workplace pension scheme provided by their employer, all eligible workers will have to actively decide not to join, if for any reason they feel this is not a suitable form of personal saving for their situation.
The duties currently carried out by the Pensions Regulator have been extended to include overall responsibility for ensuring that employers comply with the duty.
These reforms are currently planned to be introduced from 2012, and information will be made available in advance of 2012 to ensure that those employers and individuals affected, are prepared for the changes before they take effect.
National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)
From 2012 it is planned to introduce a new, simple, low cost saving vehicle (NEST) aimed particularly at employees on low to moderate incomes who currently have no access to a workplace pension scheme.
Additional measures in the Act
Simplification measures
The Act includes a number of measures designed to simplify the existing system - for both state and private pensions. These include consolidation of additional State Pension and removal of rules relating to contracted- out rights.
Pensions Protection Fund (PPF)
- The Act makes a number of changes relating to the operation of the PPF including enabling PPF compensation to be shared on divorce as well as enabling individuals in the PPF with terminal illness to commute their entitlement into a lump sum.
Financial Assistance scheme (FAS)
- The Act includes measures that will enable changes to be made to extend the qualifying conditions for the FAS.
Datasharing
The Act also allows data to be shared between the DWP and energy suppliers to enable them to better target the assistance they provide to individuals receiving Pension Credit.
Further information
You can read the Pensions Act 2008 in a html version, or a print version
- The Pensions Act 2008 (html) (OPSI website)
- The Pensions Act 2008 (PDF) (628KB)
Factsheets
This section contains some of the factsheets the Department published in relation to the 2008 Act.
| Name | Summary |
|---|---|
| Employers' attitudes and likely reactions to the Workplace Pension Reforms 2009: A quantitative survey in 2009 (56KB) |
This factsheet presents early findings from a nationally representative telephone survey of employers' attitudes and likely behaviour in response to the workplace pension reforms. |
| Individuals' attitudes and likely reactions to the personal account reforms 2008: A quantitative survey (49KB) |
This factsheet presents emerging findings from a nationally representative survey of people likely to be eligible for automatic enrolment under the Government's reforms, including attitudes to automatic enrolment and the minimum employer contribution, and estimates of the likely behaviour of individuals if they were automatically enrolled. |
