25 July 2006
Draft regulations for the extension of the Financial Assistance
Scheme have been published.
The Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) provides assistance to
members of qualifying schemes which started to wind up,
under-funded, between 1 January 1997 and 5 April 2005, and the
sponsoring employer is insolvent.
The Government announced an extension of the FAS eligibility in
May to include people within 15 years of their occupational pension
scheme's normal retirement age on 14 May 2004. Before the extension
only those within three years of their scheme retirement age were
considered.
The draft Financial Assistance Scheme (Miscellaneous Amendments)
Regulations 2006 will bring into effect the extension to the FAS,
and confirm a cut-off date of 31December 2006 for qualifying
insolvency events for schemes hoping to qualify for FAS. The
regulations also include proposals to allow pension schemes where a
sponsoring employer has undergone certain insolvency events
overseas to be treated in the same way as those in the UK.
The consultation on the draft regulations can be
viewed in pdf format by clicking here. The consultation will
last for eight weeks, and began on 24 July.
