GAD's advice supports pensions announcements
GAD advice and analysis supports a raft of new pension measures introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions.
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The government has recently published a range of pensions announcements which have been supported by advice and analysis from the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD). This includes the response to the consultation on options for Defined Benefit (DB) schemes and the subsequent publication of the Pension Schemes Bill.
Options for Defined Benefit schemes
On 29 May 2025 the government published its response to the consultation on Options for Defined Benefit schemes. This confirmed that it will be making changes to the rules on how surpluses are extracted from DB schemes, and that it is also continuing to consider a government consolidator for DB schemes run by the Pension Protection Fund.
Pension Schemes Bill
These measures on surplus extraction were included within the new Pension Schemes Bill which was published on 5 June 2025. This Bill introduced a range of measures across the pensions landscape, including a number of other areas where GAD has provided support as mentioned in separate news articles:
Other announcements
Additionally, the government made some other pensions-related announcements relating to issues where GAD has been advising:
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Retrospective actuarial confirmation of benefit changes - this announcement confirms that the government will introduce legislation to deal with issues arising from the Virgin Media v NTL Pension Trustees judgment.
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Workplace pensions: a roadmap - this policy paper which sets out the government’s provisional plan to implement reforms across DB and Defined Contribution (DC) workplace pensions.
GAD support
GAD has worked extensively with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) throughout the last year to support the work on these new announcements. This has included:
- helping analyse the industry responses to the consultation
- advising on the framework for withdrawing surplus from DB schemes
- various aspects around establishing a government consolidator
- issues around the Virgin Media judgment
- supporting development of the Pension Schemes Bill
We expect to continue working extensively with DWP in these areas over the year ahead, providing further analysis and modelling to help better understand the costs and benefits of the various proposals and the implications on DB schemes, employers and scheme members.