Pensions

Our Pensions Team provides specialist workplace pensions advice for employers. We help organisations understand their options, manage long term liabilities and make decisions that work for both the business and its workforce.

We advise employers across the full pensions lifecycle. That includes joining or participating in schemes, effecting or responding to ongoing funding and contribution levels, changing benefits, dealing with historic issues and planning exits or replacements. Many of the decisions you make about pensions will affect cost, risk, recruitment and retention. Our role is to give you clear, practical advice so you can balance those factors with confidence.

Our clients include housing providers, charities and not for profit organisations, as well as commercial businesses that offer workplace pensions to their staff. We regularly advise employers that participate in defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements, including multi-employer schemes such as the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

Alongside day to day support, we act on major pensions projects. We have helped employers recover multimillion pound LGPS surpluses, close out scheme participation, and have completed a significant number of SHPS bulk transfers (of both DB and DC benefits). In each case we focus on what the change will mean in practice, how it will be received by staff and unions, and how it interacts with wider governance and regulatory requirements.

Our approach is collaborative and commercially informed. We work closely with actuaries, consultants and internal teams so that pensions decisions are understood, documented and aligned with your wider workforce and governance goals.

Our Services

We advise employers on a wide range of pensions issues. Our work covers both public sector and private sector schemes, together with the points where pensions and employment overlap.

Public Sector Pension Schemes

We support employers that participate in public sector schemes, including:

• The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
• The NHS Pension Scheme

Our advice includes:

• Admission agreements, exits and changes in participation status.
• Managing deficits, surpluses and contribution changes.
• Application of, and obligations under, Fair Deal and the Best Value Pensions Direction
• Structuring mergers and group restructures to avoid unintended pensions outcomes.
• Day to day governance, including decision making, documentation and stakeholder communications.

We help you understand the cost and risk attached to each option, the likely response from stakeholders, and the steps required to implement decisions safely.

Private Sector Pension Schemes

We also advise employers that operate or participate in private sector schemes, such as:

• Multi-employer defined benefit schemes, including schemes within The Pensions Trust such as SHPS.
• Sole employer or internal group pension schemes.
• Occupational defined contribution schemes.
• Group personal pension arrangements.

Our work includes:

• Scheme design changes.
• Closures to new members.
• Introducing salary sacrifice arrangements.
• Salary sacrifice and other contribution structures.
• Bulk transfers between schemes or providers.
• Governance reviews and updates to scheme documentation and policies.
• Support with regulatory engagement and The Pensions Regulator expectations.

At each stage we explain the options in clear terms, highlight the legal and practical risks, and help you choose a route that fits your organisation’s strategy and risk appetite.

Where pensions intersect with employment

Many pensions issues raise employment law and HR questions. Because our pensions specialists all have employment law backgrounds, you receive integrated advice that covers both.

We regularly advise on:

• Pensions obligations on TUPE transfers.
• Workforce restructuring and redundancy programmes that may trigger pensions benefits.
• Cash allowance policies for senior employees.
• Ill health retirement cases.
• Interaction of pensions consultation and employment consultation.
• Discrimination and unfair dismissal risks where pension change programmes impact particular groups of staff.
• Training for HR and management teams that deal with pensions and employment issues in practice.

This combination means you do not need to instruct separate teams on related pensions and employment questions. You receive joined up advice that reflects your legal obligations, your workforce needs and your organisational risk.