The pension protection levy is one of the ways that the PPF funds the compensation payable to members of schemes that transfer to the Pension Protection Fund.

These pages contain information about who has to pay the levy, how it is calculated, how schemes can reduce their levy, and the invoicing process.

Latest News - 18 March

The independent steering group – which was set up by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) last year to help develop proposals for the long-term future of the pension protection levy – today (Thursday) published a paper setting out its ideas.

An additional paper setting out the analysis provided by the PPF supporting the steering group’s work has also been published.

'Future Development of the Pension Protection Levy: Feedback from the Steering Group’

‘Future Development of the Pension Protection Levy: supporting material from the Pension Protection Fund March 2010’  Note that this paper should not be taken as a PPF position on the future approach to the levy, and should be read in conjunction with the steering group report.

17 March

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and the CBI have jointly published information for pension schemes, advisors and trustees on ways that a scheme’s levy can be reduced.

‘How to Reduce Your Pension Protection Levy’ provides information about how the levy is calculated and suggests 10 actions a scheme can take to decrease the amount of levy it pays.  Schemes are also reminded to make sure they provide the Pensions Regulator and D&B with up-to-date and accurate scheme data before the data deadline on 31 March, for use in the 2011/12 levy.

29 January 2010

The Pension Protection Fund has today published '2011/12 Pension Protection Levy Consultation Policy Statement: Insolvency Risk'.

The following changes apply -  all schemes and employers should take note of them and act as soon as possible before the 31 March 2010 - the date on which insolvency risk in respect of the 11/12 levy is taken.

• D&B will collect accounts from the Charity Commission. Employers filing accounts with the Charity Commission will now have them automatically picked up by D&B up until 30 March 2010. If you are in any doubt that D&B may not pick up your accounts from the Charity Commission website, we recommend you send them directly to D&B.
  
• A new attribute called ‘nationwide’ will be introduced for businesses with three or more branches in different UK regions which will mean they are assessed as a national rather than regional employer
  
• If you think you may be affected by this change, you should contact D&B as soon as possible to ensure they hold the correct information on your branch locations. This attribute cannot be appealed after 31 March 2010.

A new probability of insolvency table for 2011/12 has also been published. This will affect all schemes’ levies. We recommend speaking to D&B as soon as possible to see if there’s any information you can provide that will affect your score.

See our FAQs on D&B and Failure Scores for more information.

18 December 2009

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has today published the 2010/11 Pension Protection Levy Policy Statement. The document sets out:

• that the Board aims to collect an overall levy of £720 million
• the levy scaling factor of 1.64
• a risk-based levy cap of 0.5 per cent of liabilities, to protect the most vulnerable 10 per cent of schemes
• a change to the way probabilities of insolvency for foreign employers are calculated
• changes to the requirements for certification of block transfers,and
• a 9 April 2010 deadline for certification of deficit reduction contributions.

As part of this package the PPF published the final levy determination for 2010/11. All documents associated with this can be found on the 2010/11 Determination page.

9 November 2009

 The Pension Protection Fund  today  published proposals for the 2011/12 pension protection levy year which improve the way it assesses the insolvency risk for sponsoring employers of pension schemes that pay the levy.

These proposals reflect industry feedback and a review of methodology and insolvency probabilities carried out by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) which continues to measure insolvency risk for the PPF.

View the 2011/12 Pension Protection Levy Consultation: Insolvency Risk

16 October 2009

Invoicing the 2009/10 levy started today. Please see our invoicing section for more information.

30 September 2009

As part of this consultation, the PPF published the draft levy determination for 2010/11, and all documents associated with this can be found on the 2010/11 Determination page.9