The Minister for Pensions Reform (James Purnell) announced yesterday that the DWP will not be going ahead with a raft of planned changes to the Occupational Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations (SI 1996/1655). Instead, the 1996 regs (as amended to date) will continue to apply.

The DWP originally consulted on a draft SI in September 2005. This was a wide-ranging package containing 32 regulations and 19 schedules. As we reported in June, however, the DWP had found it needed more time and delayed implementation to October 2006. Difficulties in deciding how to specify practicable requirements for electronic communications were at the heart of this, although the DWP has also been under sustained pressure from the industry to consolidate the various disclosure regs (notably those applying to personal, stakeholder and occupational pension schemes).

This pressure may have contributed to the decision announced yesterday. In the pension reform White Paper published on 25 May 2006, the DWP announced a review of regulation to ease the burden on employers and make it easier for them to run workplace pension schemes. Ministers, it is said, now want to look again at the broader framework of regulation. They have therefore decided to drop the new regulations. One casualty, however, is the generally-welcomed concept of information disclosure within a "reasonable time" instead of fixed time periods.

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