The Pension Protection Fund has ruled out any chances of scrapping its levy if it achieves self-sufficiency.

Speaking at the NAPF conference in Liverpool, PPF chief policy advisor Chris Collins said the firm aims to reach self-sufficiency by 2030, by which time it anticipates it will be in surplus and have almost quadrupled its assets.

Collins said the probability of achieving the objective of self-sufficiency by 2030 is roughly 90 per cent.

However, when asked if the PPF envisages a situation where it does not need to collect levies for a few years and can start to give relief to schemes, Collins said the current legislative framework “does not make it easy”.

Collins highlighted that the firm has to provide a levy estimate each year and it is only allowed to have an estimate for the following year that is 25 per cent higher than the levy estimate for the previous year.

“So technically, if we were to ever have a levy holiday, we couldn’t actually ever introduce a risk-based levy again. Additionally, our scheme-based levy can only be 20 per cent of the total levy, so we couldn’t have one of those again either." he said.

“If we get close to 2030 and there is a chance of a significant surplus in excess of the 10 per cent we’re aiming for, then that will be the point at which we may need to have a conversation with the government about an appropriate change to those sorts of rules.

“We could also possibly look at some sort of form of being able to make re-payments. It is a long way off, but there might need to be a change to the legislative framework in which we operate."

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