The Register of Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations make provision about the register of occupational and personal pension schemes.

Regulation 1 provides for citation, commencement and interpretation of the Regulations.

Regulation 2 prescribes those pension schemes which are registrable.

Regulation 3 prescribes information which is “registrable information”.

Regulation 4 provides that the Department shall provide an information service to be known as the Pension Tracing Service, which will help people to get back in touch with pension schemes of which they may be a member but with which they have lost contact. Regulation 4 also provides for regulations 4 and 5 to apply to any person authorised to carry on the Pension Tracing Service on behalf of the Department.

Regulation 5 entitles the Department to be provided with information from the register, or to inspect the register, if it considers it necessary to carry on the Pension Tracing Service. It also enables the Department to disclose certain information from the register in certain circumstances to persons seeking to trace pensions.

Regulation 6 makes revocations.

The Pensions (2005 Order) (Commencement No. 1 and Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Order (Northern Ireland) 2005 (S.R. 2005 No. 48 (C. 5)) provides for the coming into operation of the following provisions of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (“the Order”), some of the enabling provisions under which these Regulations are made, as follows –

Article 55(5), for the purpose of authorising the making of regulations on 25th February 2005 and for all other purposes on 1st April 2005;

Article 55(2)(h) and (3) and 56(1) to (3) for the purpose of authorising the making of regulations on 25th February 2005 and for all other purposes on 6th April 2005;

Article 280(1), for the purpose of authorising the making of regulations on 25th February 2005 and for other purposes on 8th March 2005 and on 6th April 2005.

As these Regulations are made before the end of the period of six months beginning with the coming into operation of the provisions of the Order by virtue of which they are made, the requirement to consult under Article 289(1) of the Order does not apply by virtue of paragraph (2)(c) of that Article.