These Regulations may be cited as the Pension Protection Fund (Closed Schemes) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2007 and shall come into operation on 6th April 2007.

In these Regulations—

• “the Order” means the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005;

• “the appropriate person” means the actuary as defined in Article 140(6) (valuations of closed schemes);

• “Article 140 valuation” means an actuarial valuation under that Article;

• “closed scheme” and “closed section” shall be construed in accordance with Article 139 (treatment of closed schemes);

• “effective date” for the purposes of an Article 140 valuation, means the date by reference to which the assets were valued and the full scheme liabilities and the protected liabilities were calculated;

• “protected liabilities” has the meaning given by Article 115;

• “segregated scheme” means a multi-employer scheme which is divided into two or more sections where—

  1. a

     any contributions payable to the scheme by an employer in relation to the scheme or by a member are allocated to that employer’s or that member’s section, and

  2. b

     a specified proportion of the assets of the scheme is attributable to each section of the scheme and cannot be used for the purposes of any other section.

In these Regulations, in the case of a scheme which is a segregated scheme, where these Regulations apply to a section of a scheme which is for the purposes of Part III2 of the Order a closed section, for “closed scheme” and “scheme” substitute “closed section” and “section”.

In these Regulations, any reference to a numbered Article is a reference to the Article of the Order bearing that number.

In this regulation—

• “the determination date” means the date immediately after—

  1. a

     the expiry of the period within which the issue of the determination notice may be reviewed by virtue of Chapter 6 of Part III of the Order (reviews, appeals and maladministration), or

  2. b

     if the issue of the notice is so reviewed—

     1. i

        the review and any reconsideration;

     2. ii

        any reference to the PPF Ombudsman in respect of the issue of the notice, and

     3. iii

        any appeal against his determination or directions,

     has been finally disposed of and the notice has not been revoked, varied or substituted;

• “the relevant period” is the period of three years beginning immediately after the relevant time of the F2Board’s determination under Article 127(2)(a) or actuarial valuation of the scheme under Article 127(2)(b) (Board’s obligation to obtain valuation of assets and protected liabilities);

• “the relevant time” shall be construed in accordance with Article 127(11)(c).

Any subsequent Article 140 valuation shall have an effective date which is not more than three years after the effective date of the previous Article 140 valuation.

The trustees or managers of a closed scheme shall obtain any Article 140 valuation of the scheme within the period of 15 months after its effective date.

Where the trustees or managers of a closed scheme are required under Article 141(1) to make an application to the Board for it to assume responsibility for the scheme, they must do so within six months of the time when they become aware that the value of the assets of the scheme is less than the amount of the protected liabilities in relation to the scheme.

In this regulation, “assessment date” means the date on which the assessment period in relation to a scheme or closed scheme, or (where there has been more than one such assessment period) the last one, began.

In the case of a scheme or closed scheme with an assessment date before 1st April 2007, these Regulations shall have effect until 31st December 2007 as if for the definition of “relevant accounts” in paragraph 1 of the Schedule there were substituted—