Industry perceptions of The Pensions Regulator published

With more and more companies starting to prepare for auto enrolment, The Pensions Regulator has released its latest ‘perception tracker’ results, showing how they are viewed by businesses.

The regulator performs this annual perceptions survey to help them understand how effectively they are fulfilling their requirements, as well as how useful employers and pension professionals are finding the services and help it provides.

You can read the full report on The Pensions Regulator website but the key findings they highlighted are the following:

• Respondents who consider the regulator’s performance to be ‘very good’ or ‘good’ remained broadly unchanged at 66% (compared with 64% in 2012).
• 30% of those who consider the regulator’s performance to be ‘very good’ say this has improved in the past year.
• There are significant improvements in perceptions of the regulator’s effectiveness at ‘strengthening the funding of DB schemes’, up from 65% to 75%, and ‘reducing the risks of claims to the Pension Protection Fund’, up from 55% to 68%.
• This year, the survey also included perceptions of the regulator’s ability to protect members of DC schemes (75% said ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ effective), and maximising employer compliance with their automatic enrolment duties (66% said ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ effective).
• 97% of respondents view the regulator’s website as ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ useful. 94% rate the Trustee toolkit in the same way.
• The regulator continued to meet the 70% average agreement with the ‘PACTT Better Regulation’ Principles, specifically: to be proportionate, accountable, consistent, transparent and targeted.

Stephen Soper, interim chief executive for the regulator commented on the results saying “I am pleased with these results, particularly the positive response to our website. We will continue to develop and refine our regulatory approach, to ensure we are equipped to tackle the challenges we face - regulating defined benefit and defined contribution (DC) schemes, fighting pension liberation fraud and working with employers and their business advisers for automatic enrolment. The confidence and support of the industry is essential for us to achieve our goals, and we will need to work hard to build upon this year’s positive findings.”

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