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Employer  >  Trustee Zone  >  OPS Matters  >  TPR Corporate Plan - the sequel

TPR Corporate Plan - the sequel

It’s certainly been a busy start to the year for The Pensions Regulator (TPR). There have been a number of consultations and on 24th April, they published their second corporate plan setting out their view of the pensions landscape, strategic direction and outcomes to be achieved in the next 3 years.

The plan highlights the progress made by TPR in the last 12 months and re-emphasises the objectives previously outlined. There has been some notable, high-profile cases such as Sea Containers, Ericsson and Telent that shows the Regulator will act and exercise its powers. You can have a look at what we said we said about the Regulator’s first 3-year plan in issue 8.

What’s new?

The Regulator’s core themes for 2008-2011 are to:

• Strengthen defined benefit scheme funding - completing the third year of the tri-annual scheme funding review;
• Improve governance of workbased pensions - influencing behaviours to improve governance standards;
• Reduce risks to members of defined contribution schemes - developing and implementing DC regulation approach and
• Deliver effective risk-based regulation - sustaining continuous improvement.

The Regulator’s chief executive Tony Hobman emphasises the Regulator’s main goals in their medium-term strategy, “Our overriding goal remains to meet our continuing statutory objectives, working efficiently and in partnership with the regulated community, government and key stakeholders”.

Mr Hobman went on to say, “We will also need to plan to meet emerging challenges arising from changes in the pensions landscape, such as the government’s pensions reform agenda, to ensure our overall approach remains fit for purpose”.

The year ahead

Within the deeper confinements of the plan is a more detailed annual plan for 2008-2009. This is linked to the Regulator’s operational activities for the forthcoming year and explains how it’ll go about measuring its own performance against its statutory objectives. As well as concentrating on meeting its current objectives, the Regulator will continue to be fully engaged at a European level on key pensions and regulatory issues.

Next steps

It’s very much a case of business as usual. You should continue to ensure you can fulfil all of yourregulatory obligations, meet statutory timescales and review and develop your knowledge and understanding in line with the Regulator’s code of practice and supporting documents. 

TPR has confirmed that it’ll publish a consultation paper on its longer-term strategy this summer. We’ll, of course, provide you with a summary of the document when this paper is published.