Pensions Weekly Update – 23 October 2024

Here is our weekly summary of key legal and regulatory developments relevant to occupational pension schemes that you might have missed, with links for further information.

• The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is planning to engage with the largest 10 professional trustee firms before the end of the year. In a recent blog post, Nausicaa Delfas, chief executive of TPR said, “We want to understand good practice but also to identify risks in areas such as ownership structure, skills and experience, diversity, equality and inclusion, conflicts of interests, and fees.” The blog post also contains information about TPR’s new “innovation hub”, which has been established to review industry ideas for new developments at an early stage and to provide guidance on the approach the regulator may take.
• In our weekly update on 7 August 2024, we noted that TPR had published the results of its review of trustees’ compliance with environmental, social and governance (ESG) duties. TPR’s climate and sustainability lead, Mark Hill, explains in a blog post how he wants trustees to go beyond minimum compliance with ESG duties and seek continuous improvement. To this end, TPR has brought together in one place a new suite of essential resources aimed at helping trustees to build their knowledge and understanding, and to embed ESG decision making into every area of scheme governance and stewardship.
• TPR is hosting a pensions dashboards webinar on 26th November at 2:30pm – this will provide “essential insights” from a panel of experts and will include a live Q&A session. This is particularly targeted at small and medium sized schemes in scope for dashboards connection.
• TPR is in the process of contacting schemes in scope for dashboards connection to ensure they have the right processes and controls in place around their data. TPR has said that it will challenge trustees who are not able to demonstrate how they meet data expectations and will consider enforcement action where necessary.
• The government has announced that the first meeting of the British Infrastructure Taskforce has been held. The taskforce is composed of government and business, with the aim of increasing investment in infrastructure to grow the economy and create jobs.
• The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 gave Companies House some teeth. Two areas of interest for corporate trustees will be the new requirement to verify the identity of directors and persons with significant control (PSC), and also the prohibition on corporate directors. The government says that from autumn 2025 onwards, directors and PSCs of existing companies will be required to verify their identities using Companies House’s new digital service. This identity verification process will take place as part of a company’s annual confirmation statement. In relation to the forthcoming prohibition on a company acting as a director of another company, the government confirms there will be an easement such that once the prohibition is in force, legislation will permit company A to act as a director of company B provided that all the directors of company A are individuals whose identities have been verified. The timescale for introducing the prohibition is not yet available.
• Labour and employment partner David Whincup takes a humorous look in his blog post at the extent to which the government’s press release reflects the contents of the employment rights bill.

If you would like specific advice on any of these issues or anything else, please contact a member of our Pensions team.