UK Pensions: what's new this week - March 24, 2025

TPR pledges to support growth

The government has published a policy paper setting out plans to address inefficiencies in the current regulatory landscape, which it believes are holding back growth. The proposed general principles for reform include: reducing the complexity and burden of regulation; creating greater clarity on regulators’ roles, approaches and processes; and challenging risk aversion.

A number of specific pledges have been made by regulators, which will be implemented over the next 12 months. The Pensions Regulator has pledged to:

• Review the capital reserve requirements for authorised master trusts with a view to ‘safely freeing up millions of pounds for schemes by the end of 2025/26.’
• Develop an innovation framework and criteria to trial pensions innovation ideas and launch a hub to market test various innovation services by autumn 2025.
• Reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and improve data sharing by (i) monitoring the quality and value of its interaction with schemes and employers over 2025/26; and (ii) reviewing its scheme return and supervisory return data collection requirements by the end of March 2026. After the review, the government will consider whether there should be changes to how and what data is captured.
• Drive scheme consolidation and investment in productive assets. It will encourage consolidation and voluntary disclosure of asset allocation data until the Value for Money framework brings in a requirement for public disclosure of long-term risk-adjusted net returns to help drive competition, growth and enhanced member outcomes.

Read the policy paper. 

New dashboards standards and blog post on preparing for connection

The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) has published new versions of the standards that schemes need to comply with to connect to pensions dashboards. These versions have been approved by the Secretary of State and schemes – or their administrators or integrated service providers (ISPs), where they are facilitating dashboards connection – must align with them in preparation for their connection deadline. Changes since the previous draft versions of the standards are largely minor and clarificatory. A final version of the design standards, which dashboard providers must comply with, is still awaited.

The PDP has also published a blog post on what schemes need to do to prepare for connection. Most schemes will already be well underway with the steps set out, which include: confirming the relevant connection date; confirming their route to connection e.g. through an administrator or ISP; complying with the standards mentioned above; preparing data, including conducting thorough data audits and addressing gaps or inconsistencies; and deciding on a data matching approach. 

Read the new standards. 

Read the blog post.