Mike Weir – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Weir on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the efficiency of the pension schemes of abolished non-departmental public bodies in (a) identifying pensioners as they become eligible for payments and (b) ensuring that payments are processed and triggered for payment on the due date.

Justin Tomlinson

Departmental preparations for the reform of non-departmental public bodies take account of the Checklist for Departments published by the Cabinet Office, which includes advice on pensions.

In the past five years, the Department has reformed three bodies which employed staff.

In two cases, staff pensions were provided by the Civil Service Pension Scheme, which has established procedures in place for identifying pensioners as they become eligible, and ensuring that payments are processed on time:

The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission was abolished on 31 July 2012 and employed 7,652 full time equivalent staff, all of whom were civil servants;

The Independent Living Fund legally closed on 30 June 2015, however a small residual team of 15 staff was retained until 30 September to deal with any residual closure issues. It had previously employed 99.5 full time equivalent staff.

In April 2015, the Remploy business was sold to a new company outside Government control. The majority of its employees transferred to that company and left the Remploy Pension Scheme at the time. The pension scheme continues to be managed by its trustees and the scheme administrators, who remain responsible for identifying pensioners and ensuring they are paid appropriately once they become eligible. At 1 January 2016, the Remploy Pension Scheme had approximately 18,000 members, of whom over 9,500 were deferred members and thus potential future pensioners. From 1 April 2016, my Department is now the Principal Employer for this scheme.