Regular round-up of the latest pensions, investments, trusteeship and scheme management news
Current Issues - November 2021
04 Nov 2021
See excerpts from this month's articles below (to read more, please download our latest Current Issues):
Autumn Budget 2021: pensions
There was little that was pensions-related in the Autumn Budget. The biggest news may be the Treasury’s plans to address the anomalous treatment of low earners under the 'relief at source’ and ‘net pay arrangements' systems for contribution tax relief. The Government will also bring forward proposals for changes to the automatic enrolment charge cap, 'to better accommodate well-designed performance fees and enable investments into the UK’s most productive assets, while continuing to protect savers.’
Simpler annual statements mandatory from October 2022
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that trustees and other providers of workplace money purchase pension schemes will have to provide their members with simpler annual benefit statements. Amendment Regulations were laid before Parliament and come into force on 1 October 2022. Statutory guidance has also been published.
September inflation
The rate of inflation for the year to September 2021 on the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) basis was 3.1 per cent; it will be the magic number for many statutory increase provisions. For comparison purposes, the rate of inflation based on the Retail Prices Index (RPI) was 4.9 per cent, and 2.9 per cent using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH).
Pensions Ombudsman guide to communicating with members
The Pension Ombudsman’s office has published a two-page guide to Communicating with Members, in which it uses its experience to give tips that will help pensions providers resolve disputes informally, and avoid ending up dealing with a complaint to the Ombudsman.
Regulator updates guidance webpages
The Pension Regulator has updated its main COVID-related guidance page to say that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has now ended, and has removed the guidance provided during the pandemic. It is now referring employers and trustees to its pre-COVID guidance (and for those who still want access to deleted material, the National Archives website).
HMRC newsletters: October 2021
In Countdown Bulletin 56, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) grants a stay of execution to its Scheme Cessation and Scheme Reconciliation eRooms. The process of shutting down the eRooms was supposed to begin on 1 September 2021, but has been postponed until the end of November to allow scheme administrators more time to extract the required information. It also provides an email address (CRM.schemereconciliationservice@hmrc.gov.uk) for GMP-related queries that cannot be resolved via the ‘GMP Checker’ service.
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