Pensions Weekly Update – 17 April 2025

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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) has issued a series of short films as part of its campaign to get the pensions industry ready for dashboards. The films feature interviews with pension savers, who believe that dashboards would make a positive difference to their retirement planning. TPR’s Director of Supervision, David Walmsley, said: “The message to industry from our powerful, new films is clear: savers are ready, are you?” Some schemes still have work to do, with TPR estimating that one in four schemes still hold some form of nondigital dashboards data.
TPR has issued a factsheet on dashboards registration codes and how to use them, including where a scheme needs more than one registration code.
A response to our Freedom of Information request reveals that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) received 31 statutory applications from schemes to defer their connection to pensions dashboards beyond 31 October 2026, but only two of these were granted, equating to a 6% success rate. The deadline for applications was 8 August 2024 – responses were issued by the DWP in March 2025.
In a recent press release, TPR highlights its success in using artificial intelligence to uncover fraudulent websites that may be used for pension scam activity. Working in conjunction with the Pension Scams Action Group (PSAG) and a “coalition of fraud fighters”, 830 websites have so far been reviewed, with 29 high-risk sites taken down and 94 referrals made to partner agencies. A recording is available of a recent PSAG webinar that covers the latest innovations in scam detection and gives an update on the new Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting and Analytics Service.
The Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) has expanded and updated its data readiness guidance for buy-ins and buyouts. The updated guidance explores in more detail what insurers are likely to view as the key data items necessary to ensure a smooth and successful transaction.
TPR has published its second climate adaptation report 2025, which sets out the actions that TPR is taking in the field of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and, in particular, climate change. The report covers the risks from climate change that are most relevant to trust-based occupational pension schemes, the policies and practices to address them and progress since the last report in October 2021. TPR says that “in terms of climate change and other financially material ESG risks and opportunities, our work is focussed on encouraging trustees to take any actions that may be necessary to adapt and enhance the resilience of scheme portfolios and investment strategies and where applicable funding strategies in the interests of savers”. The report references trends in relation to ESG identified by its recent survey of trustees of occupational defined contribution (DC) pension schemes, which we linked to in our weekly update on 1 April 2025. As a consequence, TPR also published a press release saying that “the report shows that there are too many small DC schemes where trustees’ knowledge of the scale of financial risks posed by climate change is limited. As a result, TPR is calling on those trustees to upskill or consider consolidating in savers’ interests.”
The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has published its three-year strategy. Its strategic priorities include working with the government to revise legislation to create a framework that allows for a zero levy without prejudicing the ability to reintroduce the levy when required; becoming part of the dashboards programme for PPF and Financial Assistance Scheme data; progressing a review of indexation of compensation; finalising all known applications to the fraud compensation fund; continuing to investigate and build on the possibility of acting as a public consolidator for defined benefit schemes (although the strategy does not put this in such strong terms); reviewing core systems; and establishing a view on climate change transition requirements, reflecting changing expectations and best practice.
In this blog post, Carine Elliott considers whether UK employers are keeping up with the latest developments in right to work compliance.
Do not miss the chance to attend two forthcoming webinars being run by our labour and employment colleagues. The first webinar is being held on 1 May 2025, and explores the topic of how to protect your business from being caught out in the crackdown on UK immigration. The second webinar is being held on 11 June 2025, and covers the topic of managing small-scale redundancies.