Remploy – Exemption from the Pension Protection Fund Levy

Remploy Ltd

Remploy Limited is an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. It is also a company limited by guarantee and a Public Corporation. The company was set up in 1945, under Section 15 of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944. It provides work for the harder to help disabled people in its business network of 54 factories and also supports disabled people into work with mainstream employers.

Remploy provides a defined benefit occupational pension scheme for its employees.

Exemption from the Pensions Protection Fund Levy

The Pensions Protection Fund (PPF) pays compensation to members of eligible defined benefit pension schemes, when there is a qualifying insolvency event in relation to the employer and where there are insufficient assets in the pension scheme to cover PPF levels of compensation. Most defined benefit schemes which are eligible for the PPF compensation scheme are also subject to a compulsory levy payable to the PPF.

Remploy Ltd’s occupational pension scheme is not eligible for the PPF by virtue of Regulation 2(1)(d) of the Pension Protection Fund (Entry Rules) Regulations 2005 and therefore is not liable to pay the PPF levy. Regulation 2(d) provides that a scheme is not eligible where a relevant public authority has given a guarantee for the purposes of securing that the assets of the scheme are sufficient to meet its liabilities. In the case of Remploy, the Secretary of State for Work and Pension guarantees that the assets of Remploy are sufficient to meet its liabilities in the event of the company winding-up.

The exemption is also allowed under Article 42 of EC General Block Exemption Regulation (EC) No 800/2008.

DWP have published this statement as required by the guidance on Block Exemption Notification Procedures provided by the Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).

December 2008