The Occupational Pension Schemes (Funding and Investment Strategy and Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024

Funding and investment strategy – level of detail

11.  For the purposes of Article 200A(4)(b) (funding and investment strategy), the funding and investment strategy must specify—

(a) the way in which the trustees or managers of the scheme intend pensions and other benefits under the scheme will be provided over the long term;

(b) the funding level, calculated in accordance with the requirements in regulation 8(2), of the scheme as at the effective date of the actuarial valuation to which the funding and investment strategy relates, as set out in that valuation;

(c) in the case of a scheme which has not reached the relevant date—

(i) the expected maturity of the scheme at the relevant date;

(ii) the assumptions used in specifying the funding level, calculated in accordance with the requirements in regulation 8(2) and (3), the trustees or managers intend the scheme to have achieved as at the relevant date, and

(iii) how the assumptions referred to in sub-paragraph (ii) are different to the assumptions used in calculating the scheme’s technical provisions in the actuarial valuation to which the funding and investment strategy relates;

(d) in the case of a scheme which has reached the relevant date, the assumptions used in the actuary’s estimate of the funding level of the scheme as at the effective date of the actuarial valuation to which the funding and investment strategy relates;

(e) the discount rate or rates and other assumptions used in calculating the scheme’s technical provisions in the actuarial valuation to which the funding and investment strategy relates;

(f) how the trustees or managers of the scheme expect the discount rate or rates to change over time, and

(g) in respect of the requirement in Article 200A(2)(b) to specify the investments the trustees or managers intend the scheme to hold on the relevant date, the proportion of the assets of the scheme the trustees or managers intend to allocate to different categories of investments.