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The chair of the Pensions Regulator, Sarah Smart, has decided to step down in July this year for personal reasons. The Department of Work and Pensions will lead the search for her successor, with “an ordered transition” over the next six months.
Smart first joined the regulator’s board in 2016 as a senior independent director. She became interim chair in April 2021 and permanent chair in June 2021.
Since 2016, TPR implemented auto-enrolment, an authorisation regime for master trusts, a new Defined Benefit Funding Code, strengthened scam warnings and oversaw the market entry of DB superfunds and collective defined contribution schemes, while steering pension funds through lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was given greater powers with the Pension Schemes Act 2021 following a series of corporate scandals affecting pension funds.
However, TPR also came under pressure from MPs during the 2022 liability-driven investment crisis for a lack of focus on systemic risks among pension funds. As DB funding levels improved, it was also sometimes criticised for its risk-averse approach to DB funding, sometimes blamed for the decline of DB.
As a reason for not finishing her term, Smart referred to her personal circumstances, saying it was the right time now to step away from TPR to focus on this.
“The challenge of the last decade was getting people saving, the challenge of the next is to make sure that the system really works for savers,” she said.
“To make that a reality TPR is fundamentally changing to become a regulator that doesn’t just protect savers’ money but also drives value in the system and supports innovation in the market. Now with the ongoing government pension reforms there is a unique opportunity to make pensions work for everyone,” she added.
Newly appointed pensions minister Torsten Bell thanked Smart for her nine years of public service. The DWP is responsible for hiring TPR’s chair, after an open competition regulated by the Office for the Commissioner of Public Appointments. In 2021, the role came with an annual salary of £73,840, based on a time commitment of around 104 days a year.
The government is putting pressure on regulators, including TPR, to allow more risk in the system, suggesting regulation was to blame for the UK’s anaemic growth rate.
