The Government has finally got the message: contracting-out is unnecessarily complicated. So far from taking a breather following the Stakeholder launch, the DSS has been drafting another set of miscellaneous amendment regs. Contained in a new consultation paper, the draft regs are designed to reduce the amount of information that schemes are required to provide routinely to the Inland Revenue (COEG), and to make it easier to commute trivial benefits and to transfer contracted-out rights overseas. These and other largely technical changes will generally be welcomed by the industry. Arguably the scope of the consultation paper could have been wider, but at least it's a start. Comments are required by 31 July 2001.