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Welcome to your weekly update from the A&O Shearman Pensions team, covering all the latest legal and regulatory developments in the world of workplace pensions.
Summary
- Financial Reporting Council: finalised guidance on retrospective actuarial confirmations under the Virgin Media remedy.
- HMRC: latest Pension Schemes Newsletter includes update on withdrawal of Pension Schemes Online and reminder of annual return deadline.
FRC publishes final guidance on Virgin Media confirmations
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has finalised its technical actuarial guidance in relation to providing retrospective confirmations to validate historic alterations after the Virgin Media decision.
As a reminder, under the remedy introduced by the Pension Schemes Act 2026, if a scheme has a historic alteration which does not have a necessary actuarial confirmation, trustees can request a retrospective confirmation to validate it. The actuary must confirm that, in their opinion, it is reasonable to conclude that the alteration would not have prevented the scheme from continuing to satisfy the statutory standard. The actuary may act on the basis of the information available, as long as they consider it sufficient. The FRC’s guidance promotes a proportionate approach by actuaries in assessing whether they can give a confirmation.
The final version of the guidance includes some minor changes, in particular to deal with situations where there is uncertainty or disagreement over whether an amendment falls within or outside the scope of the remedy, and the actuary considers that the amendment would not have prevented the scheme from continuing to meet the reference scheme test. In these cases, the actuary could provide a confirmation indicating that it should be taken as formal confirmation under section 102 only if the case falls within the scope of section 102. This could be a helpful solution for some instances of uncertainty about scope.
Read the FRC guidance.
HMRC: latest pension schemes newsletter
HMRC’s latest Pension Schemes Newsletter (no. 181) includes notification that the Pension Schemes Online service will be withdrawn from a date yet to be specified; schemes should ensure that migration activities for open schemes are completed by December 31, 2026.
The newsletter also includes links to HMRC’s technical note and consultation relating to the forthcoming application of inheritance tax to pensions, and a reminder that the deadline for submitting the 2025/26 annual return of information is July 5, 2026.
Read the HMRC Newsletter.
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