DEPARTMENT FOR WORK
AND PENSIONS News Release (PENS-033) issued by The Government News
Network on 25 July 2007
Minister for
Pensions Reform Mike O'Brien today welcomed an independent
report examining how workplace pension provision could be
encouraged by easing the burden of regulation on employers.
The Deregulatory Review report was produced by external reviewers
Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney. They were asked in their terms of
reference to seek consensus on the balance between member
protection and encouraging employer provision of pensions.
Minister for Pensions Reform Mike O'Brien said:
"I would like to thank Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney for all
their hard work over the last seven months and for their thorough
and thoughtful report.
"We want to lighten regulation, and when doing so will be
mindful that it is important that we strike a balance between
protecting members' benefits and encouraging employer
provision of pensions. As the reviewers acknowledge, it is not an
easy balance to strike.
"I am pleased that the focus of their report is to find ways
to encourage sustainable pension provision for employees in the
future - not only via 'traditional' defined benefit and
defined contribution pension schemes, but also through innovative
approaches where both employers and employees share the risks
inherent in pension provision.
"We will now consider their carefully balanced
recommendations. We expect to produce a full response in the
autumn outlining decisions for further action."
The key recommendations for changes to the current legislation
are:
* Changes which might make it easier for employers to get
back surplus funds in their own pension schemes
* A move
towards less detailed and prescriptive legislation, starting with
simpler rules on what schemes must tell members
* Changes to
the circumstances in which an employer leaving a multi-employer
scheme has to make a payment to the scheme
* Making it easier
for schemes to change their own rules to take advantage of changes
to legislation
* Concentrating the requirement for trustee
expertise at board level rather than on individual trustees
The reviewers have said that no changes should be made to
legislation which would adversely affect pension rights already
built up, or pensions already in payment.
Ministers will carefully consider the recommendations and will be
discussing them with key stakeholders over the summer, before
publishing a response in the autumn.
Notes to Editors
1. The report can be read at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/pensionsreform/deregulatory_review.asp
2. Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney were appointed to act as external
reviewers to the Deregulatory Review in December 2006. The
Deregulatory Review was announced in the White Paper Security in
Retirement: towards a new pension system which was published in
May 2006.
Website: http://www.dwp.gov.uk