As the management and governance of pension schemes continues to increase in complexity and risk both sponsoring employers and trustees of pension schemes are increasingly looking towards appointing professional advisers to bring knowledge, experience, and expertise to the governance and management of their pension schemes in an effort to reduce risk and achieve cost efficiencies.
The pension levy was introduced under a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation, the Finance (No.2) Act 2011. The Act, insofar as it provides for the levy, is just 10 pages long. Less is more? Not in this case. While the dust hasn’t quite settled on the financial impact of the levy on struggling pension schemes, practitioners are still struggling to get to grips with exactly what some of the more technical requirements under the legislation mean, and how they can be complied with. The primary problem practitioners are having in deciphering what is required under the legislation is a lack of clarity, loose drafting and, in some cases, seemingly superfluous wording. In the case of the Finance (No.2) Act 2011, the Government would have been well-advised to follow the approach of “more is more”.
Continue Reading Grappling with the Pensions Levy