At an XPS Group webinar on the 6th of February 2025 attended by over 300 trustees, employers, and pension managers, 71% said they supported the government’s intentions to allow DB schemes to extract surplus.
43% of those polled indicated that they would either review their strategy plans or that they had yet to finalise their plans, indicating that a meaningful number will now consider the impact of any changes. The remaining 57% said the announcements would make no difference to their strategy, with 17% of those polled already pursuing run on and 40% already pursuing insurance buyout.
Commenting on the poll’s results Tom Froggett, Senior Consultant at XPS Group, said: “The Government will be encouraged that there is support for its proposals, particularly that a meaningful number of schemes are expecting to review, or are yet to finalise, their long-term strategy following last week’s announcement. The support for running schemes on in the right circumstances is consistent with our previous research from our May 2024 survey of over 300 employers and trustees representing DB schemes with £420bn of assets which indicated that 75% of trustees would be willing to manage a scheme that runs on for surplus. Given this support, the focus now turns to how to implement the DB surplus flexibilities effectively and safely. We are calling for two things: first, a simple statutory override to enable surplus to be released, and second, regulatory guidance or a code of practice that offers trustees a comprehensive blueprint for running DB schemes on to build and use surplus safely and effectively.”
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