Pensions Bulletin 2025/10

Standard template for vote reporting by asset managers launched 

The Vote Reporting Group (VRG), established by the Financial Conduct Authority in November 2022, has published a Feedback Statement in response to its 2023 consultation on standardising vote reporting by asset managers.   

The VRG’s objectives in this work include providing more consistent, comprehensive and granular information to enable investors to hold asset managers to account for their voting practices. The VRG also aims to enhance the transparency of voting activities to better align the stewardship objectives, activities and voting preferences of asset owners and managers. 

The key development is the introduction of a standardised vote reporting template which, although voluntary, is intended for use by all asset managers in reporting to their pension scheme clients. The template is designed to capture key information on voting including essential information, categorisation and reasoning behind a vote in specified data fields. This template should in turn assist trustees when completing implementation statements in their annual report and accounts. It also addresses some of the key issues and recommendations that were highlighted in the 2021 report by the Taskforce on Pension Scheme Voting Implementation (see Pensions Bulletin 2021/39). 

This template is owned by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association who, we understand, are aiming to embed the new template across the asset management industry so that it can be used by asset managers from early 2026. The VRG states that quarterly reporting should be the minimum frequency required. 

Along with launching this template, the PLSA published an FAQs document to provide immediate support and will publish detailed technical guidance for the new template later in 2025.

Pensions Minister provides update on pension policy 

Pensions Minister Torsten Bell provided a useful update on progress on a number of pensions matters in his speech delivered on 11 March 2025 at the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association 2025 Conference being held in Edinburgh. 

On the Local Government Pension Scheme he confirmed that the pooling project started under the previous Government will be delivered “to the timeline of March 2026”. (There was a March 2025 deadline under the previous Government.) 

He also said that the final report of the first phase of the Pensions Review will be “finalised in the coming weeks”. This follows on from the interim report published in November 2024 (see Pensions Bulletin 2024/45). 

Mr Bell aims to introduce to Parliament the Pensions Bill promised in last year’s King’s Speech (see Pensions Bulletin 2024/27) before the summer recess. 

There were warm words about introducing surplus flexibilities to allow more well-funded DB schemes to release resources back to business and scheme members, along with a promise that the Government will respond to the Options for DB schemes consultation “this Spring”. This reprised the January announcement by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (see Pensions Bulletin 2025/04). 

Finally, Mr Bell re-iterated the need for public policy to focus on delivering higher returns for DC pension savers before turning to matters of contribution adequacy. 

Pensions Regulator reports on a DB funding valuation case 

The Pensions Regulator has announced that a DB pension scheme will be fully funded (on a technical provisions basis) by January 2028 as a result of their intervention which was made possible by the trustee and scheme sponsor failing to agree the 2019 valuation and the actions that should have followed from it. 

In a succinct regulatory intervention report the Regulator says that following the expiry of the 15-month statutory deadline for agreeing the 2019 valuation, it was informed by the trustee of the MGN Pension Scheme that agreement with the company (Reach plc) was extremely unlikely. There was then a period of engagement with both parties by the Regulator’s supervision team, but as agreement was not possible, in August 2022 the matter was passed to the Regulator’s enforcement team. 

In the end the Regulator did not need to use its enforcement powers (which include imposing a deficit recovery plan) as the trustee and scheme sponsor agreed an outcome in respect of both the 2019 and 2022 valuations. This included making significant improvements in the deficit recovery schedule with the financial support of the wider group and improving an existing dividend sharing agreement for the benefit of the scheme.  

TAS 300 consultation closes 

The Financial Reporting Council’s consultation on changes to its Pensions TAS (see Pensions Bulletin 2024/48) closed on 10 March 2025, with the FRC intending to publish its settled version 2.1 of TAS 300 in Q3 2025. Most of the changes being proposed are to ensure that the TAS reflects appropriately the new DB funding regime applicable to actuarial valuations with effective dates on or after 22 September 2024.

LCP’s response to this consultation is largely supportive of the FRC’s proposals, but we do have some concerns. One of these relates to when and how the new standard will be brought into force, with us putting forward some suggestions to minimise potential disruption and to eliminate unnecessary additional work.

The ACA and SPP have also submitted responses. Both are also largely supportive but make a number of suggestions that should improve the final standard. 

More pensions dashboard news 

On 5 March 2025 the Pensions Dashboard Programme announced that three of the around twenty volunteer participants had completed their “connection journey” – ie had gone through all the stages required to connect to the pensions dashboards ecosystem.  As a result, for these three participants everything should be working “smoothly in a real-world setting” before their systems connect to providers and schemes.  

Also, in the same announcement, the PDP says that standards for pension providers and schemes have now been approved by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.