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The recent news that Labour has ditched plans to re-instate the lifetime allowance is certainly welcome.

The Ofsted grading system has come under scrutiny recently, but despite a report from the cross-party education select committee calling for an end to the simplified grades, the government have confirmed they are here to stay.

One of the many facets of a pension trustee's role is to use their discretion to decide who should benefit from a deceased member’s pension fund. 

The new tax year will bring in sweeping changes to the pension world. Due to the rushed nature of the upheaval surrounding the abolition of the lifetime allowance, we still have some areas of uncertainty as the deadline rapidly draws near.

I will be celebrating 10 years at AJ Bell in a couple of months. When I joined, Pension Freedoms had just been announced and it was all hands on deck to prepare for the huge changes on the way.

The latest Finance Bill released in November gave us the first look at the transitional rules for those that have taken some pension benefits under the current regime but also have untouched funds that will be accessed after 6 April.

When the first set of draft legislation on removing the lifetime allowance came out in July, it was the accompanying policy statement that caused the biggest stir rather than the legislation itself.

It is now two years since new pension transfer regulations were brought in to help the fight against fraudsters. The new rules give pension scheme trustees the power to stop transfers if they think the member is at risk of being scammed.

Small Self-Administered Schemes – SSASs – are the original self-invested pension. The first schemes written will be approaching the big 50 in the next couple of years. They have almost two decades on the new kid on the block that is SIPP.

The consultation on the draft legislation for the removal of the lifetime allowance (LTA) has now closed. The industry has given its views and now we have to wait and see what changes – if any – are made to the clauses published so far.