FOI reference - FOI-269
Date - 8 June 2024
Request
- The auto-enrolment staging date for the company i.e. when their AE duties started.
- Whether the company has submitted the required compliance declarations, on time?
- Has the company submitted a pension scheme registry number (PSR) to the TPR? If so, when was this scheme number first submitted?
- Is the Scottish Widows Pensions Scheme used for Automatic Enrolment, Defined Contribution and Defined Benefits pension(s).
Response
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.
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