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Welsh landlord becomes latest to leave Social Housing Pension Scheme
Wales & West Housing Group has become the latest housing association to quit the sector’s Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS).
According to an update on the website of TPT Retirement Solutions, the provider that manages SHPS, the Wales & West Housing Group Pension Plan was established with effect from 1 April 2022, following a bulk transfer from SHPS.
Wales & West Housing said that the main reason for the transfer was so that it could have more control over the costs and risks associated with its defined benefit pension promises and improve the security of members’ benefits.
"For example, we are making an additional contribution to the new scheme to improve the funding level and therefore the security of members’ benefits," a spokesperson said.
The landlord, which owns 12,000 homes across 15 local authority areas in Wales, appears to be the first association to leave the scheme since The Guinness Partnership left in July last year.
Guinness’ exit, which the landlord said would allow it to have greater influence over investments, followed the departure of a number of other large housing associations from SHPS in recent years, including Bromford, Clarion, Radian (now Abri) and Sanctuary.
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It comes shortly after Inside Housing revealed that the SHPS deficit had dropped below £1bn for the first time in over a decade.
Figures shared with the 400-plus housing organisations participating in the scheme revealed the deficit had fallen from £1.6bn in September 2020 to £930m as of 30 September 2021.
At the time, a spokesperson for TPT Retirement Solutions said: “The position has been helped by strong market returns, together with the protection afforded by the scheme’s defensive inflation hedging strategy.
“Higher expected future price inflation has pushed up liabilities, but also increased the value of our defensive assets held to hedge such a scenario. The investment and funding strategy of the scheme continues to be closely monitored.”
TPT Retirement Solutions declined to comment on Wales & West Housing leaving the scheme.
The spokesperson for Wales & West added: "We have worked closely with our advisers, First Actuarial, and TPT during the transfer process. The scheme remains within TPT and we look forward to continuing to work with them and First Actuarial in the future to set a strategy tailored to our circumstances.”
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