28 August 2025
Sacker & Partners LLP (Sackers), the UK’s leading specialist law firm for pensions and retirement savings, today responded to the FCA consultation on its proposed regulatory framework for “targeted support”.
Supporting consumers’ pensions and investment decisions: proposals for targeted support |
Jacqui Reid, Partner commented: “As the DC pensions landscape continues to evolve with more pensions savers fully reliant on their DC pot and state pension for their retirement income, pensions savers will need more effective support to help them build DC savings which will give them the retirement income they need. We know that many people are not able to pay for advice and that the current support options that providers and trustees can offer their pension members without straying into regulated advice are quite limited so often fall short of what members really need.
“We therefore welcome and support the work undertaken by the FCA in relation to targeted support as it seeks to expand the support provided to pension scheme members throughout their retirement journey. We think that the proposals as they stand provide a good basis for providers of contract-based workplace pension schemes to provide more effective support to their members. However, we would encourage the FCA to continue to work with TPR and the DWP to consider the scope of targeted support from the perspective of occupational pension scheme trustees. With targeted support positioned as a new regulated activity, as things stand, it is unlikely that trustees of master trusts and own trust occupational schemes will be able to deliver this directly, as we had hoped they would be able to do. So we encourage the FCA to work with the industry to find a way to enable trustees to be able to offer targeted support or its equivalent directly to all their members. If we can get this right, it will complement the initiatives in the government’s “game changer” Pensions Schemes Bill and strengthen the much-needed focus on developing measures to tackle the critical issue of adequacy in retirement.”
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