EVOLVING OUR WORKPLACE SAVINGS PROPOSITION
The last few years have seen a lot of changes in our Workplace Savings Proposition and we’re continuing to evolve and enhance our proposition to deliver great things for our clients.
Our Workplace Savings roadmap has set out some key enhancements we’re making to our Workplace Group Personal Pension (GPP) and Group Stakeholder (GSHP). This will help offer employees greater flexibility for their pension savings and wider options at retirement, under their existing pension plans.
What are the enhancements being made?
- We’re introducing integrated flexible access drawdown, with Investment Pathways. From normal minimum pension age, employees can access drawdown within the same plan, removing the need to set up a separate plan.
- Ability to remain invested until age 99 - we're offering more flexibility to employees at and in retirement.
- For GPP an extended self-select fund range - offering access to a range of asset classes and sectors, including environmental, social and governance (ESG) options.
- More transparent charges - we’re making changes to how we deduct charges from employees’ plans, to help make the costs and charges more transparent.
- Rationalising our advice charge options - we're offering the most frequently used options. Employees can continue to instruct us to pay advice charges from their plans to their adviser.
- Adviser digital services - we've made some changes to this service; you’ll notice some differences to how you can now carry out certain tasks/activities for schemes and their employees.
We’ve written to clients and their employees to let them know about the changes and what they mean for them. We’ll also write to employees again when the changes are completed.
What the changes mean for clients and their employees
- These changes will happen automatically.
- Employees will receive updated Terms & Conditions (T&Cs).
- Clients and their employees will receive an updated scheme and plan number.
Terms & Conditions
Plan Terms & Conditions (T&Cs) will be updated and take effect once the changes are completed. It’s important that employees download and keep a copy, as these replace all previous versions. We'll write to employees to confirm this.
Payment suspension period
There will be a pension payment suspension period, as we’re updating our banking details. Employers won’t be able to upload payroll files or make payments and employees’ secondary direct debits can’t be collected during this period. We’ll write to clients and their employees separately about this.
Digital services
Digital services will be temporarily unavailable over the weekends when the changes are being made. The table below shows the dates that the services will be unavailable.
When will these changes happen?
Using the wealth of knowledge and experience within Scottish Widows and the wider Lloyds Banking Group, to ensure we deliver the best outcomes for our customers, we’re carrying out the enhancements and changes across a number of phases, see the table below for full details.
Prior to each phase, we’ve got rigorous testing and processes in place. If any issues arise that cause us concern in respect of the customer experience we’ll readjust, which could result in adjustments to the delivery dates.
| Reference | Expected completion date | status | Suspension Period dates | Online service unavailable to all on these dates | Flexi-Access Drawdown Delivery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TS6A | 8th November 2021 | Completed | Completed | Completed | Available |
| TS6B | 26th September 2022 | Completed | Completed | Completed | Available |
| TS6B2 | 20th February 2023 | Completed | Completed | Completed | Available |
| TS6C | 18th September 2023 | Completed | Completed | Completed | Available |
| TS6D | 20th November 2023 | Completed | Completed | Completed | Available |
Updated 30th November 2023