News

The Referendum is over and the majority of voters in Scotland have elected to remain part of the United Kingdom. The main UK political parties have pledged to devolve further powers to the Scottish Parliament, and pensions remain high on the political agenda for the foreseeable future. We will provide further information when it becomes available, but in the meantime, you can click here to read our factsheet on the implications of a No vote.

We are pleased to advise that the Trustee Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2014 are now available to view online.

Please note that this document, and other documents containing member-related information (including Pensions News), can now be found in a secure, members only area of the website. Members can access this document by entering their password at our members’ page – please click here. If you are a Plan member and you do not have a password, you can call 0141 207 6800, or email pensions.services@coats.com. You will need to give your Plan member number (or NI number) and date of birth.

The Government have been consulting on the pension changes announced in the March budget. The results of that consultation were reported on Monday 21 July 2014 and confirm that the Government intend to go ahead with their proposals. These are as outlined in our earlier newsflash – the details of which are shown below:

The biggest change will take place in 2015, when the intention is to remove the requirement which currently exists under a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme to buy an annuity (a bond which is guaranteed to pay out a fixed income for the rest of a person’s life, regardless of how long they live) with the pension pot that builds up in a DC scheme. This means that when they come to retire (after age 55), DC scheme members will be able to cash in as much or as little of their pension pot as they want, with some tax implications.

In addition to the changes previously announced, clarification has been provided on other areas of the 2014 budget:

• Transfers between unfunded public sector pension schemes and defined contribution (DC) arrangements will generally no longer be possible after April 2015, however, members of Defined Benefit (DB) schemes such as the Coats Pension Plan will still be able to transfer their benefits to DC arrangements, if they wish to do so after taking suitable advice.
• The earliest age at which pension benefits can be taken will increase to age 57 with effect from 2028. Further information will be included in future editions of Pensions News.

Finally, the Trustee – in conjunction with its advisers – continues to review the changes announced in the March budget to the trivial commutation limits, and as before, we will update you when we have more information. Please bear with us in the meantime.

The latest edition of Pensions News is being issued to all our members in early May 2014. Please click here to read Pensions News 32.

This edition is packed full of information, including our need to appoint a new Member-Nominated Director – you can see more details about this here.

If you are still receiving your copy of Pensions News by post, please remember that you can save the Plan money by choosing to receive future editions of Pensions News and other general correspondence electronically. If you have already given us your email address, thank you.

As of 1 May 2014, Coats Pension Plan is closed to new members. From 1 May 2014, new employees joining Coats will be able to join a new defined contribution (DC) scheme, operated on the Company’s behalf by Standard Life. More information about the new Coats DC Pension Scheme can be found by clicking here.

This decision to close the Plan to new members was taken following a consultation with all employees earlier in the year and brings Coats into line with the vast majority of other private companies. The trend in the UK market is towards DC schemes rather than DB schemes (like the Plan) and they are now most commonly offered to new employees by UK businesses.

This will have no impact on deferred members or those whose pension is already in payment. Existing Plan members will continue to build up their pensions on the current DB basis.