Always a Pensions Angle

The apparent contradiction between the Treasury’s new exit payment cap and existing Local Government Pension Scheme regulations risks limiting employers’ ability to restructure their workforce, warns Alison Murray, partner and head of public sector actuarial at Aon. She is joined by Linklaters counsel Anna Taylor, in a conversation also covering a new responsible investment bill and a proposed solution to the Section 75 problem.

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The plethora of administrative maladies facing the NHS pension scheme should be addressed by a three stage approach: capping the problem; a reactive process prioritising those closest to retirement; and proactive use of the dashboard, says Peter Glancy, head of policy development at Scottish Widows. He’s joined by Helen Morrissey, corporate PR specialist, long-term savings at Royal London, in an episode also looking at the suggestion of pensions as deposits for first-time buyers.

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Deteriorating defined benefit sponsor health has led to a three-fold increase in the level of liabilities belonging to schemes that could end up in the Pension Protection Fund over the next 18 months. Pensions Expert speaks to PPF chief executive Oliver Morely, chief actuary Lisa McCrory.

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The pace of defined contribution consolidation could accelerate should we ever find ourselves on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic, as companies decide to outsource administration. But the price paid by defined benefit schemes for consolidation makes it a less obvious boon, says Squire Patton Boggs partner Kirsty Bartlett.

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Defined benefit schemes could be “doomed to failure by measures that are designed to help them”, says Baroness Ros Altmann of the proposed new funding code. She is joined by SEI’s client strategy director Alistair Jones to discuss that issue, as well as the challenges faced by master trusts, and the increasingly bizarre McCloud remedy that, though intended to tackle age discrimination, has been accused of age discrimination.

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The Pensions Regulator is going to make changes to its fast-track approach proposed in its defined benefit funding consultation due to the impact of Covid-19, revealed David Fairs, executive director of regulatory policy, analysis and advice at TPR.

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Pension schemes hold an extraordinary amount of personal data. Though trustees have done much since the passage of GDPR to improve data security, it is impossible to remove the risk of breaches entirely. So says ITM director Maurice Titley, joined this week by Aon partner Lynda Whitney to discuss cyber security, McCloud, and Covid-19’s impact on recovery plans.

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The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association’s LGPS and DB policy lead Tiffany Tsang and Eversheds Sutherland partner Jeremy Goodwin join us to discuss potential “unintended consequences” from the pension schemes bill, fallout from the insolvency bill, and Richard Curtis’s Make My Money Matter campaign.

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After the ruling from the High Court that the Pension Protection Fund cap on deferred member benefits is illegal on age discrimination grounds, the pensions lifeboat could face a new legal challenge as members who have not reached retirement age have their benefits cut to 90 per cent, argues Ian Neale, director at Aries Insight. He and Sara Protheroe, chief customer officer at the PPF, discuss this topic, as well as the interim regime for superfunds and the implications of the new insolvency bill for pension schemes.

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Trustees aiming to make ethical investment decisions can find it tough to justify them without recourse to a crystal ball, as the legal requirements are ill-defined, says Irwin Mitchell’s pensions partner Penny Cogher. In this episode she’s joined by independent consultant and long-time pensions expert Malcolm McLean for a discussion covering capital-backed endgame deals, the complications of new insolvency laws, and some morally dubious LGPS investments.

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