Foresight on pension legislation

Timeline – what is happening and when? Foresight recaps on recent updates to regulatory milestones over the next three years. See Foresight Issue 1 2009 for previously announced events. Contact your Mercer consultant to discuss these changes and start the planning process.

  = beginning from that date    = expected from that date

December 2009

 Trivial commutation of small pensions for cash sums of up to £2,000. Change to trivial commutation rules set by HMRC. Effective from 1 December 2009. [Finance Act 2008: The Registered Pension Schemes (Authorised Payments) Regulations 2009]

April 2010

 Review of Disclosure of Information Requirements applying to Occupational, Personal & Stakeholder Pension Schemes. [Following the Deregulatory Review, draft regulations are awaited, following a consultation by the DWP on its proposals. This closed on 6 May 2009]

 The Equality Bill 2008-2009. [Expected to be enacted by April 2010, with further regulations to follow] This Bill consolidates existing laws on all types of discrimination and introduces some new requirements. Each scheme must have a non-discrimination rule to prevent a ‘responsible person’ such as a scheme trustee, from discriminating against a person on the basis of a protected characteristic (e.g. gender or race).

April 2012

 The 2011/2012 tax year is expected to be the last year that contracting-out on a defined contribution (DC) basis will be available. [Pensions Act 2007 – waiting for details in regulations]

October 2012

 Personal Accounts Scheme, concept of “qualifying schemes” and automatic enrolment to be introduced from 2012. New ‘employer duties’ in relation to automatic enrolment and the details of the personal accounts scheme will be confirmed by a series of new regulations that are currently being drafted. [Pensions Act 2008 and awaiting regulations]