TPR Chair Sarah Smart said: “Automatic enrolment has turned millions into savers. We now need to make sure those savings deliver real value in retirement. That means a pension system that is efficient, effective, and removes needless barriers to investment. Our Corporate Plan shows how we will work with industry and government to achieve our goals. The market is changing, along with the expectations of trustees. Schemes must be well governed, powered by high-quality data, and open to innovation. Those that can’t deliver should consider consolidation, in the interests of savers.”
Chief Executive Nausicaa Delfas said: “Our focus remains clear: to protect, enhance, and innovate to deliver genuine value for money. The Pension Schemes Bill will reshape the market, driving consolidation into mega schemes that can boost governance, scale up savings, and support the UK economy. Building on this, real progress depends on industry-wide collaboration to ensure people get the retirement they deserve. That is why we will be focusing on raising standards of trusteeship and investment governance, driving value for money in pensions schemes, and creating default retirement solutions for pensions savers.”
TPR’s plan is designed to ensure:
• Savers have the opportunity for good outcomes when they join a scheme because employer compliance with automatic enrolment duties remain high.
• All schemes are well-run, with the capabilities of those running schemes improving over time. To align trustee standards with other corporate governance standards, TPR will work with industry and government to ensure high standards of trusteeship and stronger investment governance so that all savers benefit from diversified investments.
• Pension schemes offer value to savers and invest in productive assets and innovative products, where it is in savers’ interests to do so. To help bridge the gap before the Bill comes into force, TPR will continue to have a laser-like focus on value, challenging schemes to show how they are delivering good value for savers and working in lockstep with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Financial Conduct Authority to develop and implement a value for money framework for DC schemes.
• Savers are supported into the right value for money retirement products and services for them. TPR will work with our industry partners to encourage the development of appropriate decumulation pathways for turning DC pots into retirement incomes.
To deliver on its priorities, TPR has transformed to a more prudential style of regulation, addressing risks not just at an individual scheme level, but also those risks which impact the wider financial ecosystem. It has launched a new approach to master trust supervision, a new digital, data and technology strategy and an innovation support service to protect, enhances and innovates in savers' interests.
A year of change for TPR
In addition to its Corporate Plan, TPR has also published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2024/2025, detailing its progress in transforming how it works to protect savers, enhance the system and innovate in savers' interests.
Stronger, more meaningful engagement with the pensions market, a renewed focus on standards of trusteeship, and a drive to harness digital, data and technology to improve the experience for savers were among the highlights of a year of change for TPR.
During 2024-25, TPR established a different relationship with the pensions industry through ever-deepening market engagement and expert-to-expert dialogue to understand market risks and develop solutions that benefit savers over the longer term.
Specific activities outlined in TPR’s corporate plan include:
• Challenge small schemes to undertake a detailed value for members assessment. This will encourage consolidation in savers’ interests.
• Prioritise innovation at retirement in savers’ interests by developing an innovation framework and criteria to trial pensions ideas as well as launch a support service to test new services.
• Collaborate with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop the regulatory framework for multi-employer collective DC schemes.
• Using our experience to date to support DWP to define legislative framework for superfunds.
• Raise the standards of trusteeship and investment governance.
• Expand market oversight to the largest professional trustee firms covering over £1 trillion worth of assets, to identify and mitigate risk to pension savers.
• Make sure trustees have the right data hygiene in place before dashboards come into force, and challenging schemes who may be failing its expectations.
• Ensure pension schemes do not present a threat to financial stability, publish LDI analysis and update reports to the market and finalise data needs and information sharing arrangements with the Bank of England.
• Drive new enforcement approaches alongside targeted compliance to ensure TPR is efficient and effective in regulating automatic enrolment as possible. This will be supported by delivery of a new enforcement strategy, leading to the implementation and embedding of enhanced enforcement approaches.
• TPR’s Annual Report and Accounts shows it met, or almost met, 30 of its 31 key performance indicators (KPI) for 2024 to 2025. It did not meet the KPI to address cyber risks and pensions technology in the pensions sector. However, it is engaging with cybersecurity experts to assess the risks posed to savers. This knowledge will inform its role, tolerance, and mitigation of these risks and positively impact its performances against this KPI.
• The Pensions Regulator is the regulator of work-based pension schemes in the UK. Our statutory objectives are to:
o protect members’ benefits
o reduce the risk of calls on the Pension Protection Fund
o promote, and improve understanding of, the good administration of work-based pension schemes
o maximise employer compliance with automatic enrolment duties
o minimise any adverse impact on the sustainable growth of an employer (in relation to the exercise of the regulator’s functions under Part 3 of the Pensions Act 2004 only
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