Who Regulates Your Pension? Introducing the Pensions Regulator

We work hard during our lifetime and as such when it comes to our retirement planning, we want to ensure that our pensions provisions are as secure as can be.

As with every other aspect of the UK’s financial system, the pensions industry is, on the whole as secure and regulated as can be. With so much at stake, the UK Government, in the shape of the Pensions Regulator (TPR) takes a strong role in overseeing your pensions provision.

The Pensions Regulator – Overseeing Your Pensions

The TPR is the public body that protects workplace pensions in the UK. The TPR  works with employers and those service providers running pensions so that people can save safely for their retirement – they also act as point of recourse for pensions related complaints.

The TPR’s stated aim is to act as a strong, visible regulator that can help inspire confidence in the pensions system. The TPR’s key responsibilities include:

• Ensuring employers put their staff into a pension scheme and regularly pay money into it (known as ‘automatic enrolment’)
• Protecting people’s savings placed in workplace pensions
• improving the way that workplace pension schemes are run
• Reducing the risk of pension schemes ending up in the Pension Protection Fund (PPF)
• Making sure employers balance the needs of their defined benefit pension scheme with growing their business

Furthermore the stated TPR’s 2020-2021 priorities are to:

• Support workplace pensions schemes to deliver benefits through significant change driven by the global pandemic
• Protect pension savers across all scheme types through proactive and targeted regulatory interventions
• Provide clarity to, and promote the high standards of trusteeship, governance and administration we expect
• Intervene where appropriate so that defined benefit schemes achieve their long-term funding strategy and deliver on pension promises
• Ensure jobholders have an opportunity to save into a qualifying workplace pension through automatic enrolment
• Continue to build a regulator capable of meeting the future challenges we face

About the Pensions Regulator: The TPR is a public body sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). is based in Brighton and has around 500 staff. The TPR works closely with the Financial Conduct Authority who regulate personal pension schemes. The TPR also works closely with other public bodies including the DWP.

In short the TPR provides the oversight and vehicle to monitor and regulate your pensions – for all further information please visit https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk