Burying a Bad Consultation

21. June 2016 · Write a comment · Categories: Legal, Pensions, Regulation, Risk

800px-Tata_Steel_Logo_svgThe Government has launched a consultation into what unique arrangements could be put in place purely for the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) so that:
• It won’t be a burden on the new owner of the steel business in the UK
• It won’t be a burden on the Pension Protection Fund (PPF)
• It won’t be a burden on UK PLC

The consultation document states that “In such a complex situation, the Government needs to listen to a wide range of opinions in order to decide what course of action we should take. We are therefore seeking views on the options and proposals set out in this paper. We would welcome both answers to the specific questions posed and also wider thoughts on the ideas discussed.” It therefore seems strange that they have chosen the period leading up to the EU Referendum to launch the consultation, when a wide range of opinions is likely to be the last thing they get. It is almost as if they are trying to bury a bad consultation.

In fact it is not complicated, because this is the poor collection of options it is considering (my responses are in italics):

Option 1: Use existing regulatory mechanisms to separate the BSPS

ie the regulatory mechanisms which have been good enough for:
• MG Rover Pension Scheme
• United Industries PLC Pension Scheme – United Industries PLC section
• Caithness Glass Group Benefits Plan
• Denby 2001 Pension Scheme – DH Realisations Limited (formerly known as Denby Holdings Limited) segregated part
• Do It All Pension Plan – Do It All Ltd Section
• Allied Carpets Group Plc Pension Scheme
• Polaroid (UK) Pension Fund
• The Royal Worcester & Spode Pension Scheme
• Woolworths Group Pension Scheme – Woolworths Group Sections 129
• British Midland Airways Limited Pension and Life Assurance Scheme – UK DB Section
• Railways Pension Scheme – Relayfast Group Shared Cost Section
• Royal Doulton Pension Plan – Royal Doulton (UK) Limited segregated part of section
• HMV Group Pension Scheme
• Industry Wide Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme – UK Coal Operations Section
• Industry Wide Mineworkers Pension Scheme – UK Coal Operations Section
• The Kodak Pension Plan
• Saab GB Pension Plan – Saab Great Britain Limited segregated part
Amongst many others (only 5,945 schemes of the original 7,800 defined benefit schemes protected by the PPF remain outside).

Consultation question 1: Would existing regulatory levers be sufficient to achieve a good outcome for all concerned?

Yes. These levers were good enough for all these other schemes.

Apparently these are not good enough for Tata Steel.

Option 2: Payment of Pension Debts
Under the defined benefit pension scheme funding legislation, a sponsoring employer can chose at any time to end their relationship with the scheme – even if the scheme is in deficit. However, the employer must pay to do so.

Tata have indicated that Tata Steel UK (TSUK) would not be able to make such a payment, and that this would be unaffordable.

The usual options in this case would be:
• A sale with the pension scheme
• The insolvency of Tata Steel (how ridiculous this sounds shows that the required payment is not unaffordable)
• A sale without the pension scheme, in which case the PPF would be looking for substantial mitigation from Tata Steel and/or a share in the company in exchange for taking on BSPS

Apparently these options are not good enough for Tata Steel.

Option 3: Reduction of the Scheme’s Liabilities Through Legislation

The proposal would reduce the level of future inflation increases payable on all BSPS pensions in payment and deferment to a similar or slightly better level than that paid by the PPF. If adopted, this would mean that in the future existing pensioners would receive lower increases to their pensions than they would under the current scheme rules, or possibly no increases at all. Deferred members would also receive a lower increase to their preserved pension when they reached normal pension age, and would then receive the lower increases to their pension payments.

This approach is not without risk – which is why it is not routinely used.

Actually I am not aware it has ever been used.

Although the intention would be for the scheme to take a low risk investment strategy, there is always residual longevity and investment risk, and it is possible that the scheme would fall into deficit in the future. In the event of scheme failure, the downside risk would ultimately be covered by the PPF and its levy payers.

ie after all of the legislative hyperactivity for the benefit of one scheme, it could easily just end up in the PPF anyway.

Question 2: Is it appropriate to make modifications of this type to members’ benefits in order to improve the sustainability of a pension scheme?

No. As there is no guarantee it will improve the sustainability of the only pension scheme being considered, ie BSPS.
Regulations under section 67 of the 1995 Act
Section 67 of the 1995 Pensions Act (‘the subsisting rights provisions’) provides that scheme rules allowing schemes to make changes can only be used in a way which affects benefits which members have accrued if:
• the changes are actuarially equivalent – this means that an actuary has certified there is no reduction in overall benefit entitlement, only in the way the benefit is paid (for example, indexation is reduced but initial pension level is increased to compensate); or
• the individual member consents.

Consultation question 3: Is there a case for disapplying the section 67 subsisting rights provisions for the BSPS in order to allow the scheme to reduce indexation and revaluation if it means that most (but not all) members would receive more than PPF levels of compensation?

Ie they want to remove the need to get members’ consent before reducing their benefits. The answer is again no.

Option 4: Transfer to a New Scheme
This option would allow for bulk transfers without individual member consent to a new scheme paying lower levels of indexation and revaluation.

A bulk transfer with consent has been used previously as a mechanism for managing exceptional problems around an employer and their DB scheme.

However, the BSPS trustees have concerns about getting individual member consent to a transfer. The sheer size of the scheme means that getting member consent for a meaningful number of members would be difficult and the transfer would only be viable if enough members consented to transfer. Setting up a new scheme and transferring members to it may also need to be done rapidly in order to facilitate a solution to the wider issues surrounding TSUK – and this would be difficult to achieve in the necessary timescales if individual member consent to a transfer had to be achieved.

Consultation question 4: Is there a case for making regulatory changes to allow trustees to transfer scheme members into a new successor scheme with reduced benefit entitlement without consent, in order to ensure they would receive better than PPF level benefits?

No, as it would not ensure that they received better than PPF level benefits.

Governance of the New Scheme

The British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) operates as a trust. The scheme is administered by B.S. Pension Fund Trustee Limited, a corporate trustee company set up for this purpose. The assets of the Scheme are held in the name of the trustee company and, as required by law, are separate from the assets of the employers.

The trustee board has 14 members, seven are nominated by the company and seven are member-nominated trustees. The role of the trustees is to ensure that the scheme is run in accordance with the scheme’s trust deed and rules, and the pensions legal framework. The trustees’ duties are also to ensure the proper governance of the scheme and the security of members’ benefits.

Consultation question 5: How would a new scheme best be run and governed?

Under trust, separate from the assets of the employer, and subject to full existing pensions law. You could probably manage with considerably fewer than 14 trustees, but these should include member nominated trustees and, probably, a professional independent trustee.

Consultation question 6: How might the Government best ensure that any surplus is used in the best interest of the scheme’s members?

Pensions legislation already has provisions for how to apply assets to secure full benefits for members with an insurance company and deal with any surplus that occurs (it is usually set out in the scheme rules). A surplus is a highly unlikely scenario.

What the Draft Regulations Would Say
Disapplication of the subsisting rights provisions to the British Steel Pension Scheme Regulations (section 67)
These regulations would disapply the subsisting rights provisions to changes made in relation to indexation and revaluation under the BSPS Scheme Rules. This would mean that TSUK can exercise the power in the existing scheme rules to reduce levels of indexation and future revaluation to the statutory minimum without member consent. We intend to make any disapplication of the subsisting rights provisions subject to certain conditions being met to ensure member protection is not further compromised.

This is a terrible idea. Section 67 has protected many members from reductions to benefits they have already built up over the years. It should be maintained.

These would include requiring the BSPS trustees to agree unanimously that the changes to indexation and revaluation would be in the best interests of the scheme members. We are also considering whether it may be appropriate to make it a condition that the Pensions Regulator agrees to the changes being implemented.

Why has the Pensions Regulator not been asked for its view already?

Consultation question 7: What conditions need to be met to ensure that regulations achieve the objective of allowing TSUK to reduce the levels of indexation and revaluation payable on future payment of accrued pension in the BSPS without the need for member consent, balancing the need to ensure that member’s rights are not unduly compromised?

The objective is inappropriate. Disapplication of section 67 should be abandoned.

Consultation question 8: What conditions need to be met to ensure that regulations achieve the objective of allowing trustees to transfer members to a new scheme without the need for member consent, balancing the need to ensure that members’ rights are not unduly compromised.

They can’t. And this therefore shouldn’t be attempted.

All in all, a very bad consultation rushed out under cover of a much higher profile campaign.

Time to take a look outside?

16. February 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Actuarial, Legal, Pensions, Regulation

shutterstock_84989578

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) is introducing a new mandatory Actuarial Profession Standard (APS) in relation to review of actuarial work. The existing requirements in the APS applying to scheme actuaries will be withdrawn.

APS X2 Review of Actuarial Work will come into force on 1 July 2015 and is accompanied by a detailed, practical Guide. One of its key requirements is that actuaries, for any piece of work they wish to have reviewed, will need to consider the need for that review to be independently carried out, ie by someone not otherwise involved in the work in question.

I should declare straight away that I have a conflict of interest about this new standard, having set up a business because I felt scheme actuaries should have access to peer review services from an experienced scheme actuary outside their organisations. I am delighted that an idea which seemed a little odd to some when I first started offering these services in 2013 should now be regarded as sufficiently mainstream by the IFoA to prompt a revision of peer review guidelines.

Under APS X2, review processes are defined as either work review or independent peer review. Whereas work review is a general term covering all forms of review processes, the term independent peer review can only be applied to review processes involving reviewers not otherwise involved in the piece of work under review.

There are many reasons why you might want to have your work independently reviewed, for example:

  • Work reviewed within a firm might be influenced by the respective positions of the actuary and his/her reviewer within the management structure of the organisation;
  • Even if the work is reviewed by a colleague completely objectively, it might not be seen to have been;
  • There is a risk of group think in any organisation. Review from outside can significantly reduce this risk;
  • An independent reviewer may have a different range of experiences to draw on from those within your organisation. This can be particularly useful when reviewing work where there are potential conflicts of interest or concerns over how best to communicate a piece of work.

If this sounds of interest and you think it might be time to take a look outside for some of your peer review needs, my details can be found by following the link.

 

Freedom and choice – a response to the Treasury pensions consultation

05. June 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Defined Ambition, Legal, Pensions, Regulation, Risk

The consultation on the proposals for pensions announced in the Budget, and contained in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, ends on 11 June. I have set out my response below. I hope that it will sufficiently incense one or two more people into making their views heard, before the chance disappears.

A.1
The government welcomes views on its proposed approach to reforming the pensions tax framework.

1 Should a statutory override be put in place to ensure that pension scheme rules do not prevent individuals from taking advantage of increased flexibility?

Yes. Otherwise you are just writing cheques to pensions lawyers.

2 How could the government design the new system such that it enables innovation in the retirement income market?

Reform preservation rules, the TPR code on funding, HMRC rules and the PPF levy framework so as not to penalise different arrangements across the defined ambition spectrum. Remove the annual allowance, controlling the level of tax relief offered through the lifetime allowance only (I got this the wrong way round in my first draft – the annual allowance assumes regular incomes, many people now have incomes which bounce up and down alarmingly from year to year. It is also ridiculously cumbersome to administer).

3 Do you agree that the age at which private pension wealth can be accessed should rise alongside the State Pension age?

No. There is already an issue around healthy life expectancy and the state pension age in some regions of the UK.

4 Should the change in the minimum pension age be applied to all pension schemes which qualify for tax relief?

Yes. The arrangements need simplification.

5 Should the minimum pension age be increased further, for example so that it is five years below State Pension age?

No (see answer to 3).

A.2
The government welcomes views on its proposed approach to supporting consumers in making retirement choices.

6 Is the prescription of standards enough to ensure the impartiality of guidance delivered by the pension provider? Should pension providers be required to outsource delivery of independent guidance to a trusted third party?

There needs to be more clarity about the charges which can be levied for guidance or if it is to be remunerated in some other way.

7 Should there be any difference between the requirements to offer guidance placed on contract-based pension providers and trust-based pension schemes?

No. In most cases the scheme members have not chosen to receive lower levels of service.

8 What more can be done to ensure that guidance is available at key decision points during retirement?

I think there needs to be a right (but not requirement) to it for everyone at 50, 60, 70 and 80 as a minimum, at an agreed national nominal charge. I imagine that the £20 million available to develop resources for this will need to be increased significantly to make an impact on the quality of guidance materials provided.

A.3
The government would welcome views on the options outlined in point 5.15, including their likely complexity, and the burdens they might place on scheme sponsors and HMRC.

9 Should the government continue to allow private sector defined benefit to defined contribution transfers and if so, in which circumstances?

Yes. In all circumstances.

10 How should the government assess the risks associated with allowing private sector defined benefit schemes to transfer to defined contribution under the proposed tax system?

The reasons the Government have advanced for the changes to DC are equally compelling when applied to DB:

1. There is a lack of choice for people at retirement, which has become more of an urgent concern now that auto enrolment is boosting DC membership. This is even more the case for DB members who are already numerous (although getting less so daily), as their only choices are how much cash to take up to the 25% tax free limit and (up to a point) when to retire.
2. Current regulations deter innovation. This is, of course, why defined ambition as an idea has been so slow to get off the ground.
3. Restrictions on cash commutation imply a lack of trust of members to be able to decide how they spend their savings.
4. The concern that the annuity market has not maximised income for scheme members. This is mirrored by the high cost of de-risking via bulk annuities, which is the ultimate “flight path” for most DB pension schemes, and which many argue has resulted in a big drag on the growth of UK PLC.

All that would be required to extend the proposed freedoms would be to allow DB members to commute as much of their benefits at retirement, whether for cash or income drawdown, as they wanted, with the rest taken as pension as now. This could be applied to private and public sector schemes and would, I believe, at a stroke head off the rush to transfer.

Even if the Government does manage to stop people pouring out of the exits before April next year, this has to be bad policy. To provide more freedom and choice to one group of pensioners and at the same time to remove a longstanding freedom (and one available at the point members joined the schemes) from the other groups is clearly unfair. What is worse, with an election looming, it is likely to be unpopular.

A.4
The government would welcome views on any potential impact of the government’s proposals on investment and financial markets.

For private DB schemes, the Government says the decision is “finely balanced”. I think their fears are exaggerated and rather contradict the earlier declaration of trust in pensioners to make appropriate decisions about their retirement – after all appropriate investment in support of regular income in retirement (which would presumably be recommended by the “guaranteed guidance” to be offered to DC members) should not differ markedly from the equivalent investments in DB schemes. Whether DB schemes invest on a longer-term basis than individuals is, as the Kay Review made clear, uncertain.
The level of the Government’s concern about financial markets rather makes it look as if individuals can be trusted to look after themselves, with a slightly bigger safety net and a bit of advice, but financial markets cannot. This cannot be right.

As easy as ABC?

01. June 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Cartoons, Legal, Pensions, Regulation

SPV colourWith the recent revelations about the tax affairs of Gabby Logan and Gary Barlow in the news, it seems a good time to focus on the pension scheme equivalent.

Asset-backed contributions or ABCs have been lurking in the background of pension scheme funding for a while (Marks and Spencer set up such an arrangement in 2007), but have really only come to prominence since 2010. As you can see, they had quite a few takers over the next three years:

ABC history

The total number of ABCs has now grown to more than 60, with a value of more than £6 billion. The value of each has tended to be around 10-20% of total scheme assets.

So why is this? For employers the answer is easy:

  • The employer can “pay” across an asset to the scheme while continuing to use it within its business.
  • The future stream of payments to the scheme is capitalised to make an immediate increase to the scheme’s funding level, which both makes the company accounts look better (although the Financial Reporting Council have been looking hard at a number of these) and reduces its Pension Protection Fund levy.
  • There is the potential to accelerate the tax relief on employer contributions if it is set up carefully.
  • The new effective “recovery period” (ie the period over which the stream of payments is paid from the special purpose vehicle known as a Scottish limited partnership (SLP) into the scheme) is usually longer than that of the recovery plan it replaces. It may also be more “back end loaded”, ie with a lump sum at the end allowing lower payments in the short to medium term.

But for trustees it is less clear:

  • The payments into the scheme are normally lower than they would be under a recovery plan which would not attract additional scrutiny from the Pensions Regulator.
  • The “asset” the employer is offering should already have been priced into the funding negotiations as part of the assets of the company included within the trustees’ covenant review. The ability to gain access to this asset on the occurrence of certain trigger events is, in principle, no different from the employer allowing the scheme to take a charge over that asset. However there are likely to be more hurdles to realising the asset under an SLP-type arrangement, as these arrangements are inherently more complicated than a simple legal charge.
  • There is usually no flexibility about the payments from such an arrangement which are targeted to meet a notional funding target many years in the future. By this time, the true funding target is likely to have changed, as will the value of the asset held in the SLP.
  • In order to make the arrangement work, they have to be a corporate trustee, even if they have not previously felt the need to incorporate to carry out their duties.

In summary, this is a vehicle for getting around the restriction on employer-related investment (ERI) of 5% of total assets which has existed since the Pensions Act 1995 came in. The only exceptions previously were small self-administered schemes (SSASs) which could use company property and loans to the company as assets on the basis that all the people in them were directors of the company. Whether it achieves this or not is as yet untested in the courts, although there have been some very confident legal opinions expressed about the fact that the letter of the ERI legislation only refers to shares or other securities, which cannot exist in this case because:

  • The SLP is an unincorporated body within the UK so it cannot issue shares. As one lawyer has said “the magic of a SLP is its distinct legal identity”.
  • A partnership interest is not generally considered a share (which is why, the confident legal opinion goes, along with the safeguards written into the agreements, Scottish independence would not make these deals suddenly illegal – although this obviously begs the question of why then you would go to such great lengths to create a SLP in the first place).

The Pensions Regulator is clearly uncomfortable with these arrangements, sensing that they are just devices for driving a coach and horses through its code of practice on funding. However, they are not illegal, so the Regulator has been able to do no more than issue guidance to trustees and their advisers on asset-backed contributions, with a long list of risks that they pose and advice trustees would need to seek before agreeing to one. They correctly point out that an ABC is not a bond-like investment, as some have suggested (unless by bond you mean a corporate bond issued by the sponsor of the scheme, ie an investment which becomes riskier the worse your sponsor is doing – which is not normally the point of bond investment). But the real kicker is the requirement they have set for a separate underpin that would protect the scheme’s position eg “in the event that the courts find that ABCs are void for illegality or where there is a change in the law”. This could turn out to be very expensive for the 60 such arrangements already in place.

However, just for a moment, despite all memories of other situations where lawyers have told us that scheme documents are copper-bottomed but which have subsequently proved to have traces of straw (equalisation, for instance), let us assume that the ABC drawn up in the way the Regulator has suggested will benefit the schemes which participate. These arrangements may observe the letter of the legislation but they clearly do not observe their spirit. Just look at the typical structure of one:

ABC diagram

And then tell me that it bears no resemblance to the kind of “tax management scheme” we have seen punished recently. Here is Chris Moyles’ one as an example:

Chris Moyles

More and more voices are questioning the tax relief that pensions receive (the Institute of Fiscal Studies being one recent example). Steve Webb has also indicated that he would like to see a reduction in tax relief on pension contributions for higher rate taxpayers. Is this really the time to be championing schemes which accelerate that tax relief even more?

Peering over the barricades

30. January 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Actuarial, Cartoons, Legal, Pensions, Regulation

Have you, as a result of your frenetic activity since Christmas, got a bit of a peer review backlog? I can help. Let me be the scheme actuary you’re temporarily short of. With a 10% discount on the rates shown here until the end of the UK 2013/14 tax year, and a further 10% reduction for type 2 peer reviews.

Peer review cartoon

Time to define your ambition

03. December 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Actuarial, Defined Ambition, Demographics, Legal, Pensions, Regulation, Risk

The consultation on the future shape of workplace pensions has been going on for nearly a month now and ends two weeks on Friday. It is littered with errors, from completely repeated questions (Q52 = Q54) to ones which are so similar as makes no difference (Qs 41 and 44 for example) and the thrust of a lot of the questions are quite hard to answer if you do not share some of the underlying assumptions of the DWP about the process, but come on! This is our chance to put a bit of definition into the rather blurry outline of a straw man which some of the newspapers have been tilting at so vigorously!

You don’t have to answer all of the questions, but just to goad you a bit I have done so here. Agree, disagree, I would love to hear from you. But not until you have responded to one of the following addresses:

How to respond to this consultation

Pleasesendyourconsultationresponses,preferablybye-mail,to:definedambition.pensionsconsultation@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

Or by post to:

Defined Ambition Team

Private Pensions Policy and Analysis

1st Floor, Caxton House

6-12 Tothill Street

London

SW1H 9NA

 

Feedback on the consultation process

There have only been 24 posts on the blog. I think the main reason for this was identified early in the process from a contributor referring to herself only as Hannah:

Hannah

I applaud the use of an open blog but it’s obvious that there’s a bit of a problem here! Perhaps, to avoid this becoming sidetracked, you could introduce a drop-down in the comment section so that people could select what aspect of DA reform or the consultation their comment relates to – and if their comment relates instead to concerns about their accrued benefits, you could redirect them to a separate specialised member queries page?

Reply

Sam Gilbert

Thanks for this Hannah, we will look into this once the blog picks up pace.

DA Team, DWP

Of course the blog never did pick up pace because people soon realised that there comments would be lost in a stream of pension benefit queries. Not the way to encourage a consultation. If you want to comment on this or anything else about the process of the consultation, the contact details are as follows:

Elias Koufou

DWP Consultation Coordinator

2nd Floor

Caxton House

Tothill Street

London

SW1H 9NA

Phone: 020 7449 7439

Email:elias.koufou@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

Pension schemes: where mathematics and law collide

30. October 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Actuarial, Legal, Pensions

I recently attended a lecture given by Professor Raymond Hill on Mathematics and the Law. It focused on a number of cases where a misunderstanding of probability and statistics in particular had led jurors to acquit or convict in the teeth of the evidence presented, to prosecutors to construct cases which made no logical sense, to expert witnesses to mislead and for judges to misdirect juries.

One particular case he mentioned concerned the tragic death of two babies born to Sally Clark, a solicitor from Cheshire, within 2 years of each other. Sally was charged with the murder of both babies once the second had died. At her trial in November 1999, Professor Meadow, a paediatrician but clearly not a mathematician, claimed that, in this case, the chance of two babies dying from sudden infant death syndrome or cot death was 1 in 73 million. This figure came from a study of the deaths of all babies in five regions of England between 1993 and 1996, which estimated that the chance of a randomly chosen baby dying a cot death fell, if the child was from an affluent non-smoking family with the mother aged over 26 like Sally Clarke’s, from 1 in 1303 to 1 in 8543. Piling travesty upon travesty, the chance of Sally Clark suffering two cot deaths was then calculated as 1 in 8543 times 1 in 8543, which is where the 73 million figure comes from. Sally Clarke was convicted on the basis of this ludicrous kangaroo statistical “evidence” and spent over 3 years in jail and needed two appeals before she was finally cleared. A full account of the case, and how Professor Hill went about presenting the absurdity of it, can be found here.

As Blaise Pascal wrote: “You always admire what you really don’t understand.”

Mathematics and law can come into conflict for a number of reasons, but one thing that doesn’t help is that they share a lot of the same words. Proof, for instance. But where this means an immutable truth in mathematics, as true today as it was thousands of years ago and as it will be thousands hence, proof in law will depend on the time in which the trial takes place and the burden of proof required. When there was the threat that Syria would be bombed by the UK and US, some opponents used the idea that you shouldn’t pass a death sentence on whoever would be standing under the bombs unless the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons “beyond reasonable doubt”. I saw one estimate of this as an 80% probability, however I have since seen 99% probability presented as a definition. So proof in law is a more elastic concept.

As a pensions actuary, I have had my own, rather different, problems with the interaction of mathematics and law. Defined benefit pension schemes are mathematical constructs as well as legal constructs. If you do A and B and earn C, then the pension scheme to which you belong should deliver benefits to you of D. However a pensions lawyer would see it rather differently, in terms of obligations of certain parties towards other parties under the legal construct of a trust.

When drafting pension scheme rules, lawyers often have to set up quite complex conditional relationships between possible events and outcomes. It is quite possible for some of these to be left out (in which case we hear that “the trust deed and rules are silent”), and also for them to be included but in a way which displays a certain amount of ignorance of mathematical logic, meaning either that the rules are very difficult to implement or have unintended consequences. This generally then creates work for a different set of lawyers down the track.

As a result, actuaries have long accepted that trying to interpret the rules of any pension scheme without legal advice is just asking for trouble. And the list of legal disclaimers actuaries populate their reports with grows year on year as a new threat of future second guessing emerges. There is therefore certainly considerable respect for the importance of the legal elements of the construct of a pension scheme by actuaries, if not always full understanding. Unfortunately, the same does not always hold in reverse. I have seen numerous examples of rules drafted without the mathematical elements of the construct fully taken into account by the drafters:

  • benefits either too ambiguous to value or in contradiction with each other;
  • double revaluation of benefits built into the rules in one instance;
  • elements of scheme design which would obviously need to be reviewed in the future, like commutation factors of 9 to 1 for instance, hard coded into rules so that they can only be changed by a deed of amendment.

Actuarial input into any issue around a pension scheme is frequently dismissed by lawyers as “crunching the numbers”. I think most of them would be mortally offended if an actuary turned to them and asked them to crunch the words.

Pensions lawyers and actuaries need each other if pension schemes are going to work properly. And they need to understand each other rather better too.

Lawyers Go Negative

16. September 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Legal, Regulation

Lawyer attack adThe Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has decided that no action will be taken against the Law Society as a result of their Don’t Get Mugged campaign, which ran during July and August. The advert encouraged accident victims to seek legal representation from solicitors rather than rely on a third-party capture offer from an insurer. The ASA considered that it neither denigrated insurers nor was likely to distress victims of actual muggings.

What this campaign does appear to do is open the door to professionals attacking each other overtly in their advertising (what US presidential candidates call “going negative” with “attack ads”) in their desire to get more business from the public. Supermarkets have done this from time to time, but it is relatively rare elsewhere. I still remember the Dillons advert from the eighties aimed at its main competitor, Foyles, (Foyled again? Try Dillons) because of its rarity. However it looks like we may be about to see a lot more of it. Will this give rise to insurers and banks going at it with independent financial advisers even more loudly over the level of independence of the advice being received, or solicitors and licensed conveyancers escalating hostilities? Will this help informed decision making by anyone? I somehow doubt it.

It seems unlikely that solicitors will turn the same type of emotional manipulation on each other any time soon, as the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority sets out as one of its principles that solicitors should “behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services”. So that leaves the field clear for other professions to get in there. I would suggest something like this (add the name of your profession as appropriate):

shutterstock_106513214

Let the games commence!

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