It’s been a long wait for the General Code, and there may be more time to wait yet… Beth Casinelli explores the General Code and explores Compliance Capture, Deloitte Legal’s technology tool which will ease the burden for the Trustees.

General Code

After the initial consultation, the Pensions Regulator produced an interim response to the draft Code in August 2021, and throughout 2022, it was expected that the Code would soon come into force. There have been multiple updates coming out of the Pensions Regulator regarding the proposed timeline for the General Code to come into force, including the most recent suggestion that the Code would be effective from Summer 2023. But alas, there have been further delays. At the time of writing, the General Code has still not been laid before Parliament. It is required that legislation (such as that which lies behind the General Code) is laid before Parliament 40 sitting days before it is passed into law, and as such with the Summer Recess beginning on 20 July that deadline has now passed. As such, the General Code now will not be effective before Autumn 2023 (assuming that it is laid before Parliament immediately following the recess).

Despite the delays, the content of the draft General Code has not changed significantly. There have been some concerns in the industry that sections of the current draft of the General Code may be further edited in light of recent events (e.g.: recent high profile cyber-attacks). However, given the tight drafting of the Code and the significant developments in these areas already offered by the drafting of the General Code, we are expecting that the final version will not be significantly different to the draft versions already seen. Regulations which are currently in force already set out what the Code will cover.  

What should we do?

As such, we would recommend that schemes begin to evaluate their current processes and systems, in order to bring themselves up to compliance ahead of this coming into effect (a view which has been substantiated by comments made by a representative of the Pensions Regulator). This is especially important in the context of wider pensions horizon scanning – the coming year looks to be a busy period, with schemes already facing substantial workstreams around ongoing GMP Equalisation exercises, and preparing for changes coming out of Pensions Dashboards, Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the DB Funding Code.

Can Deloitte help? 

Deloitte Legal has developed Compliance Capture, which is a gap-analysis tool designed to enable Trustees to comprehensively cross check their compliance with the requirements in the Pensions Regulator’s new single Code of Practice and covers all areas of the Code.

The survey is broken down into bite sized modules, to enable Trustees to complete the questionnaire at their own pace. Responses are typically ‘Yes/No’ or ‘1-10’ scale. All Trustees are provided with their own link, so that they can each answer the sections relevant to them (for some, all sections may be applicable, but there may be circumstances in which one individual is better placed or where the module is better answered by someone else (e.g.: the Scheme Administrator answering the section relating to administration).

Once the survey is completed, a report is generated based on the answers provided. This report includes an ‘Executive Summary’ (around 2-3 pages) summarising the key issues flagged up and top priorities, and including guidance from the team at Deloitte Legal, and a ‘Main Body’, which is much more detailed, including full analysis and graphical analysis around the responses provided and flags of ‘outlier’ negative responses.

Once the trustees have had some time to digest the report, our team of legal specialists provide verbal feedback based on the report’s findings during a one-hour consultation with the Trustees. This looks to provide practical and professional advice on actions which need to be taken to ensure compliance.

In order to help Trustees prioritise outstanding tasks, request work, and keep a track of actions and priorities, access is also provided to LegalHub – a management portal where upcoming, outstanding and important tasks are and can be prioritised, flagged and diarised and further work can be requested. This Portal also provides the ability for the Trustees to store copy documents of the evidence confirming compliance with the requirements of the Code of Practice (such as policies, procedures, reports and statements), so that that the Trustees have everything they might need in one handy place.

If you have concerns about meeting compliance with the General Code, or you would like more information about Compliance Capture please contact Beth Casinelli.    

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