FOI reference - FOI-129
Date - 29 June 2023
Request
Response
I confirm that we hold the information you have requested. However, some of the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure.
According to TPR data, there are 55 non-associated multi-employer schemes from the pension schemes register as at 1 July 2023.
Methodology and caveats
- The source for this data is TPR's records, based on the information received directly from the schemes in response to the mandatory Annual Scheme Return. Data is not weighted or imputed to account for non-response to the survey.
- All figures are from TPR's data as of 1 July 2023.
- We have excluded parent, gone away, wound up and non-registerable schemes as standard.
- Schemes with less than 2 members are not required to fill in a scheme return, and any that did have been excluded.
- For DC schemes, we included schemes identified themselves both as master trust and as Non-associated multi-employer in the ‘Employer relationship’ section of scheme return.
- For DB and hybrid schemes, we included schemes identified themselves as ‘established as a centralised scheme for non associated employers’ in the ‘Multi-employer scheme structure’ section of scheme return.
We have not been able to provide scheme names as this information is exempt from disclosure.
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.