TPR and PPF Publish "The Purple Book"

Comprehensive and vital information to help identify and manage risks surrounding UK-based defined benefit pension schemes has been published today by the Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund.

"The Purple Book" pulls together data and analysis on the DB landscape providing the industry with a much needed single credible information source.

The report will be published annually to enable the regulator, PPF and importantly, employers and scheme trustees, to track changes in risk over a period of time.

Chairman of the regulator David Norgrove said: "This book starts to fill the information void that exists about the risks that defined benefit pension schemes are exposed to. Also, it is an important tool in helping us deliver regulation which is focused on those schemes that are most at risk."

PPF chairman Lawrence Churchill added: "This is a much wanted resource for the pensions industry, advisors and analysts who need to identify risk as early as possible in order to address it accordingly. It is also essential for both the PPF and the regulator to ensure that we make decisions based on the best evidence available."

One of the key objectives of the document is to provide an overview of the DB pension landscape, enabling risks surrounding scheme size, industry-type, level of funding, insolvency and asset allocation to be correlated and assessed effectively. In the future the Purple Book will contain crucial information on the PPF's operations such as the number and size of claims, the number benefiting from PPF payments, the scale of levy payments to the Fund and its assets and liabilities.