Pensions - Articles - DWP updates DC member communication rules

 On 6 April 2014 the Department for Work and Pensions amended the regulations on member communications in a DC scheme.

 It's important that trustees and their advisers understand these changes and assess whether their scheme is compliant with the law.

 Trustees now need to tell members about the open market option at least four months before their retirement date (previously six months), and they must ensure that if they use 'lifestyling' in their investments then they notify members of this on at least two occasions.

 Find out more about trustees' communication duties, trustees and advisers can also use our evaluation tools to assess their scheme against our DC code and regulatory guidance.

 DB running costs revealed

 Research published this week has shown that the average annual cost of administering a defined benefit scheme can be as much as £2,744 per member. You can see the average costs for schemes of different sizes with our new comparison tool. To help trustees and employers assess their yearly running costs, we've produced a checklist of the main categories of costs, View the comparison tool, costs checklist and underlying research on our website.

 Investigations follow record keeping review

 Following a review of the standards of record keeping in a sample of pension schemes, we have launched seven detailed investigations. Find out more about our review of record keeping and the importance of keeping accurate data.