Skip to main content

Your browser is out of date, and unable to use many of the features of this website

Please upgrade your browser.

Ignore

This website requires cookies. Your browser currently has cookies disabled.

Set your privacy preferences

We use necessary cookies to make our website work. Cookies are small files stored on your device. We also use optional cookies to improve our services and tell us if you have seen our advertising. The data we collect is anonymised. Are you happy to accept these cookies?

Information about different types of pension schemes

FOI reference - FOI-5545
Date - 23 January 2021

Request

You have requested the following information:

  1. List of the names of all pension schemes in the UK according to scheme type ie defined benefit, hybrid/mixed-benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes.
  2. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of pension schemes in the UK including defined benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes.
  3. An extension of (1) – appending information pertaining to scheme type ie defined benefit, hybrid/mixed-benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes.
  4. Most up-to-date figure for total memberships (ie actives, deferred and pensioners) according to scheme type ie defined benefit, hybrid/mixed-benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes.
  5. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of assets under management according to scheme type ie defined benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes.
  6. Most up-to-date figure for the total liabilities of defined benefit schemes according to different valuation methods ie scheme specific technical provisions, buy-out, IAS19, PPF s179.
  7. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of people that have been automatically enrolled into schemes since the introduction of automatic enrolment.
  8. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of trustees (employer nominated, member nominated and professional trustees) in the entire pensions landscape.
  9. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of professional trustee firms.
  10. List of the names of all professional trustee firms.

Response

I can confirm that we hold information falling within scope of your request. However, we are unable to supply some of the information requested for the reasons set out below.

Information we are able to supply

  1. All UK schemes with less than 100 members have been published on EIOPA’s website for several years. However, post-Brexit this source of information may not remain available indefinitely. Please also see the list of Master Trusts on TPR’s website.
  1. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of pension schemes in the UK including defined benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes. Please see Table 1 below.
  1. Most up-to-date figure for total memberships (ie actives, deferred and pensioners) according to scheme type ie defined benefit, hybrid/mixed-benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes. Please see Table 1.

Table 1: Number of Schemes and Total Memberships for all occupational schemes except confirmed EPP and RSS schemes (effective 1 Feb 21)

Number of schemes Total membership Active memberships Deferred memberships Pensioner memberships
Defined Benefit 4,720 6,649,000 581,000 3,103,000 2,964,000
Defined Contribution 4,640 1,490,000 739,000 742,000 7,000
Hybrid 890 4,876,000 896,000 2,478,000 1,502,000
Master Trusts (DC) 30 18,713,000 8,790,000 9,915,000 8,000
Master Trusts (Hybrids) 20 687,000 314,000 268,000 105,000
Public Service 410 18,381,000 8,066,000 5,395,000 4,920,000
All 10,710 50,797,000 19,387,000 21,902,000 9,506,000
  1. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of assets under management according to scheme type ie defined benefit, defined contribution, public service, and master trust schemes. Please see Table 2 below.
  1. Most up-to-date figure for the total liabilities of defined benefit schemes according to different valuation methods ie scheme specific technical provisions, buy-out, IAS19, PPF s179. Please see Table 2.

Table 2: Assets and liabilities for all occupational schemes except confirmed EPP and RSS schemes, also excluding DC micro schemes (£) (effective 1 Feb 2021)

Assets (£bn) TP Liabs (£bn) S179_Liabs (£bn) S75_Liabs (£bn) Accounting Value Liabs (£bn)
Defined Benefit 896.393 958.851 952.331 1,286.98 831.487
Hybrid (DB Section) 656.434 680.655 649.226 917.83 595.637
Subtotal – DB: 1,552.83 1,639.51 1,601.56 2,204.81 1,427.12
Defined Contribution 35.917 - - - -
Hybrid (DC Section – non MT) 57.269 - - - -
Master Trusts (Pure DC only) 53.446 - - - -
Master Trusts (Hybrid - DC Section) 2.895 - - - -
Subtotal – DC: 149.528 - - - -
Grand Total: 1,702.35 1,639.51 1,601.56 2,204.81 1,427.12
  1. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of people that have been automatically enrolled into schemes since the introduction of automatic enrolment. Please see the AE declaration of compliance report on our website.
  1. Most up-to-date figure for the total number of trustees (employer nominated, member nominated and professional trustees) in the entire pensions landscape.

Table 3: Number of Trustees for all occupational schemes except confirmed EPP and RSS schemes (effective 1 Feb 2021)

Number of Trustees
Defined Benefit 9,040
Defined Contribution 8,830
Hybrid 1,890
Master Trusts (DC) 60
Master Trusts (Hybrids) 20
Public Service 30

Methodology and caveats

  • All figures are from TPR's data as of 1st February 2021
  • We have excluded parent, gone away, wound up and non-registerable schemes as standard.
  • EPP and RSS (SSAS) schemes have been removed from Tables 1 and 3. Additionally, DC micro schemes (ie those with fewer than 12 members) have been removed from Table 2.
  • For DC schemes the asset value is based on Market Value of Scheme Assets submitted via the latest Scheme Return.
  • For the DC Section of Hybrid schemes the asset value is based on Market Value of DC and DC AVC assets submitted via the latest Scheme Return.
  • For DC Assets, we only take account of the valuation date no more than three years to be consistent with TPR DC Trust Publication.
  • For DB schemes and the DB section of Hybrid schemes the asset value is based on DB (scheme funding) valuation submitted via the latest Scheme Return.
  • For avoidance of doubt, none of the above asset values have been rolled forward to a common effective date.
  • Technically speaking there are separate asset values for each of the liability bases, but in practice the distinction is not material.
  • Trustees rather than trusteeships were identified by comparing name/email domain (with no further attempt at deduplication).

Information we are not able to supply

  1. As we have been given strong powers to demand documents and other information from trustees, employers and others, those powers are also balanced by restrictions on how we disclose the information provided to us. The type of information you have requested would be ‘restricted information’. Restricted information is defined at section 82(4) of the Pensions Act 2004 (PA04) as:

    ‘…information obtained by the Regulator in the exercise of its functions which relates to the business or other affairs of any person’.

    Under section 82(5) of the PA04 it is a criminal offence to disclose such information except as permitted under that Act.

    Whilst the FoIA is based on the presumption of releasing information, section 44(1)(a) of the FoIA provides an absolute exemption to the requirement to disclose any information if its disclosure is prohibited by or under any enactment. In this case, section 82 of the PA04 prohibits disclosure and we are unable to disclose the requested information. This exemption is absolute and does not require a public interest assessment be undertaken.

  1. We are unable to provide this information as we do not hold this, we only hold a sub-set. We can provide a copy our Independent Trustee Register, please see our response to point 10.
  2. We cannot provide this information as we do not hold this, we only hold a sub-set. Please see Independent Trustee Register below.

The firms on our register (as of 1 May 2021) are:

  • 20-20 Trustee Services Limited
  • BESTrustees Limited
  • Capital Cranfield Trustees Ltd
  • Dalriada Trustees Limited
  • Entrust Pension Limited
  • Independent Trustee Services Ltd
  • Open Trustees Limited
  • Pi Consulting (Trustee Services) Ltd
  • PTL Governance Ltd
  • Punter Southall Governance Services Limited
  • Ross Trustee Services Limited
  • The Law Debenture Pension Trust Corporation Plc
Back to top