Pensions

Pensions

This Overview outlines the Practice Note material available in our Pensions subtopic.

Pensions—general considerations for employment lawyers

Payment into pension schemes that are registered with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has significant tax advantages for both employers and employees (see: ‘The pensions tax regime’ below). Pension schemes are also a way of attracting and retaining employees.

Under European law pension benefits are considered to be deferred pay, so they are subject to the principle of 'equal pay for equal work'. A significant amount of indirect discrimination litigation has occurred in the past few years; the majority of which had been brought by part-time workers, the majority of whom are women.

Employers may run occupational pension schemes for the benefit of their employees. Occupational pension schemes tend to be either 'final salary' (also known as 'defined benefit') schemes or 'money purchase' (also known as 'defined contribution') schemes:

•
final salary schemes commit the scheme, under the deed and rules, to paying members a set annuity on retirement
•
money purchase schemes require employees and employers to pay a set amount each year into the scheme, usually expressed as a percentage of

To view the latest version of this document and thousands of others like it, sign-in with LexisNexis or register for a free trial.

TAKE A FREE TRIAL

Latest Employment News

Acas issues guidance on new neonatal care leave and pay rights

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) has published guidance on neonatal care leave ahead of the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 (NC(LP)A 2023) taking effect on 6 April 2025. The NC(LP)A 2023 introduces up to 12 weeks of statutory leave and pay for eligible parents whose babies require neonatal care for at least seven consecutive days. The entitlement applies from day one of employment and must be taken within 68 weeks of birth. The guidance outlines eligibility criteria, notification requirements, managing leave, pay and rights during and after leave. The NC(LP)A 2023 covers all categories of parents including birth parents, partners, adoptive parents and intended parents in a surrogacy.

Employment weekly highlights—3 April 2025

This week’s edition of Employment weekly highlights includes: (1) a round-up of the key employment law changes taking effect in April 2025, (2) a number of new and updated factsheets on the various rights and reforms set to be introduced under the Employment Rights Bill, (3) Home Office plans to extend the illegal working regime to gig economy and zero-hours workers, (4) a fine issued by the Competition and Markets Authority against the BBC, ITV, IMG and Sky for colluding to fix freelancers’ pay, (5) the introduction of new national minimum wage and national living wage rates, (6) an employment tribunal decision that the manifestation of a pastoral manager’s beliefs on submissiveness in women towards their husbands justified her dismissal by the school, (7) an EAT case examining actions taken in the course of employment and the ‘employer’s defence’ under section 109(1) of the Equality Act 2010, (8) an update to the Vento guidelines for injury to feelings and psychiatric injury, (9) a Court of Appeal case on the EAT’s exercise of discretion where a party has missed a deadline despite reasonable efforts to comply with the rules, (10) dates for your diary, and (11) other news items of interest to employment practitioners.

EU rules on algorithmic management remain up in the air

MLex: The European Commission is currently delaying a decision on whether to propose binding regulations for AI in the workplace. It released a study with inconclusive findings, which was already outdated, and has commissioned a new report. The 2023 study considers that current EU legislation can address many negative consequences of algorithmic management, but ‘some gaps remain’ concerning work safety, data protection, and discrimination, making a strong case for collective bargaining.

Withholding DSAR documents from inspection during data protection proceedings by relying on a Data Protection Act 2018 exemption (Cole v Marlborough College)

Information Law analysis: This claim relates to the scope of production and the application of the exemptions to production of personal data in responding fully to a subject access request. The Claimant, Thomas Cole (Cole), who was a student at the Defendant school, Marlborough College (the College), submitted a data subject access request (DSAR) under Article 15 of the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation, Assimilated Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the UK GDPR) after he was removed from the school following his involvement in a physical altercation with another student. In this half-day case management hearing, Mr Justice Nicklin assessed whether the College was entitled to withhold, in whole or part, documents containing Cole’s personal data, rather than providing the material for inspection ahead of a two-day trial on the data protection claim expected to start in mid-2025. The court held that the College was entitled to withhold some documents (containing Cole’s personal data) on the grounds of the exemption in paragraph 16 of Schedule 2, Part 3 to the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). In short, this exemption provides that a controller is not obliged to disclose information to a data subject where doing so involves disclosing information that relates to another individual who can be identified from that information, whether as the source of information or as the subject of such information. Written by Robyn Bond, associate at Ropes & Gray International LLP.