7 Days is a weekly round up of developments in pensions, normally published on Monday mornings. We collate this information from key industry sources, such as the DWP, HMRC and TPR.
In this 7 Days
- TPR updates guidance on reporting breaches in relation to dashboards
- TPR urges trustees to help protect their members from fraud
- PASA guidance on surviving spouse, civil partner and dependants’ pensions
TPR updates guidance on reporting breaches in relation to dashboards
TPR has updated its guidance on assessing whether to report a breach of pensions law. The guidance includes a “traffic light” system of breaches using examples categorised into red, amber and green, with green breaches being those which TPR expects would generally not need to be reported.
The updated guidance includes two dashboard-specific examples of breaches relating to the provision of value data (ie a member’s accrued and projected pension values). The data must be provided within certain time frames after a request. Generally, where it has been generated for a statement provided to the member within the past 13 months, or is based on a calculation made within the past 12 months, it must be provided immediately. Otherwise, it must be provided within three working days in respect of DC benefits or 10 working days in respect of DB benefits (different timescales apply where a member has recently joined the scheme). If these timescales are not met, trustees should consider whether the breach should be reported to TPR.
The new “green” examples in TPR’s guidance cover situations where value data may be slightly out of date for a short period while updated figures are uploaded, and where a breach occurs during the dashboards testing phase.
Whether a breach must be reported will depend on the specific circumstances and whether it is likely to be of material significance to TPR. Relevant factors include the cause and effect of the breach, reaction to it and the wider implications.
TPR urges trustees to help protect their members from fraud
In a press release published on 16 April 2026, following the Pension Scams Action Group’s Fighting Pension Fraud webinar 2026, TPR reminds trustees and administrators of the importance of tackling pension scams. Speaking at the webinar, the Fraud Minister, Lord Hanson, said trustees and administrators should take every opportunity to reinforce scam warning messaging.
TPR urges trustees and administrators to:
- commit to TPR’s industry Pledge to Combat Pension Scams campaign
- stay up to date on the latest scam warnings
- educate their members on the risks and how they can keep themselves safe, for example by signposting to Stop!ThinkFraud and the Pension Scams Action Group’s latest Scam Safe leaflet which has been updated to include the FCA’s Firmchecker tool, allowing members to check a firm is FCA-authorised and has the necessary permissions, and
- tell Report Fraud about any suspicions.
PASA guidance on surviving spouse, civil partner and dependants’ pensions
On 16 April 2026, PASA published new guidance on assessing and calculating pensions payable to a surviving spouse, civil partner or other qualifying dependent on the death of a DB scheme member (referred to as a contingent spouse pension or “CSP”). It focuses on data quality, setting out a “practical framework” for assessing, calculating and maintaining CSPs and highlighting the role of “robust data” in supporting insurer transactions, dashboard readiness and other aspects of pensions administration.
