Wyn Derbyshire

This Practice Note provides an introduction for persons who are new to Pensions law to the different types of pension schemes (or pension arrangements) in the UK, including the state pension, private sector pensions, workplace pensions, occupational pension schemes, hybrid schemes, cash balance schemes, employer-financed retirement benefit schemes (EFRBS), personal pension schemes, self-employed pensions, and public sector pension schemes.

This Practice Note looks at the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) (referred to as the workplace pension set up by government) as a means by which an employer can satisfy its enrolment duties under the automatic enrolment legislation. In particular, the Practice Note sets out the key aspects of NEST, covering its nature and governance and how NEST operates, including participation by employers, contributions, transfers, investments and benefit structure.

This Practice Note focuses on the considerations necessary for the correct identification of a pension scheme's statutory employer(s) in a defined benefit (DB) scheme. In particular, this Practice Note considers the reasons for identifying statutory employers, the various legislative definitions of employer, how those definitions interact, issues where a scheme has no statutory employer and circumstances which may be give rise to difficulties.

This Practice Note looks at the powers of the Pensions Regulator to wind up an occupational pension scheme or issue a modification order in relation to winding up such a scheme.

This set of notes and specimen documents forms an automatic enrolment (AE) pack intended to enable employers, including small and micro-employers, to deal with the requirement to enrol employees into an AE scheme.

This Checklist summarises the key steps to follow when carrying out a bulk transfer of a group of members from one occupational pension scheme to another.

Planning of merger•Reach “in principle” agreement between trustees and employers of both transferring and receiving schemes on pursuing merger exercise.•Review governing provisions of both transferring and receiving schemes to confirm transfer of assets, liabilities and members can be made. Amend provisions if necessary and possible.•Check whether schemes’ benefit structures are compatible.•Check whether contracted-out status of either scheme poses a problem.•Review respective funding positions of schemes and obtain actuarial advice. Check whether employer top-up payment required.•Agree how