The Pensions Regulator

Guidance for trustees

.

.

.

Keeping the Pensions Regulator informed

The Pensions Regulator operates a risk-based approach to regulation. Our assessment of the risk relies on us having up-to-date information about your pension scheme and on us receiving reports of significant events which affect the scheme.

The law requires that you must provide us with information at certain times and in particular circumstances. You must supply us with information for our register of pension schemes and complete regular scheme returns. You will also have to inform us when particular scheme or employer-related events and certain breaches of the law happen.

This section of the guidance explains the information you have to provide to help us to perform our role effectively:

• Providing information for the register and the scheme return
• Notifiable events
• Breaches of the law

See also the Trustee toolkit, particularly the module covering Pensions Law.

Providing information for the register and the scheme return

The Pensions Regulator keeps a register of pension schemes, holding information about the scheme and the employer. Trustees must:

• provide the Pensions Regulator with the information required by law for the register (for example, the address where we can contact each trustee); and
• notify us of changes to the information.

Where a scheme is being registered for the first time the trustees must provide all the information within three months of the scheme being established. The regulator must be told about any changes to the information within a reasonable period.

The register will be used by the Pensions Regulator to carry out its duties.  Some information on the register will also be available to the Pension Tracing Service, a service operated by the Department for Work and Pensions to help members to trace pension schemes they have lost touch with.

The scheme return

The Pensions Regulator has a duty to issue a scheme return to all schemes on the register on a regular basis. Defined benefit and large defined contribution schemes will receive a return annually while smaller defined contribution schemes may wait up to three years between returns. The return asks for:

• the information needed for the register; and
• other information that we reasonably need to carry out our duties, for example, to assess the risks for each scheme.

Scheme returns are available for completion on-line and to ease the burden on trustees they come pre-filled with information we already hold where possible. The scheme return notice makes it clear the date by which the trustees must complete and send the return back.

The online services section of our website provides further information on the scheme return and how to complete it.

Notifiable events

Notifiable events are designed to provide a warning system. Where a scheme is eligible to cover from the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) they alert the Pensions Regulator to a potential employer insolvency or to problems with the funding of the scheme. This allows us time to try and help improve the situation before a claim on the PPF becomes inevitable.

Notifiable events are scheme-related or employer-related. Trustees of schemes with a defined benefit element have to report to the Pensions Regulator when particular scheme-related events happen. Sponsoring employers of these schemes must notify us when particular employer-related events happen.

• An example of a scheme-related event is two or more changes to the post of scheme actuary or auditor within 12 months.
• An example of an employer-related event is any decision by the employer to cease to carry on business in the UK.

The full list of notifiable events can be found in the regulations.

Some notifiable events do not need to be reported if at the time the event occurred certain conditions are satisfied. The exemptions are set out in the Notifiable events directions.

The report must be made in writing, as soon as ‘reasonably practicable’ after the person becomes aware of the event.

Our code of practice - Notifiable events - gives practical guidance on how trustees and employers may meet the notifable events requirements.

Reporting breaches of the law

Trustees must report certain breaches of the law to the Pensions Regulator. This duty is often known as ‘whistleblowing’. This places a duty on trustees, employers, professional advisers and others to report to the Pensions Regulator when they reasonably believe that a legal duty relevant to the administration of the scheme has not, or is not being met, and that it is materially significant to the Pensions Regulator.

A report must be made in writing, as soon as reasonably practicable.

Our code of practice - Reporting breaches of the law - contains practical gudiance about meeting the reporting requirements, and outlines the standards and practice we expect trustees and others to meet.  Separate guidance contains examples of breaches of the law and explains whether we would consider them to be of material significance.

.

.

.