The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has confirmed that the 2014/15 pension protection levy estimate will be £695m as originally proposed.

This information, which is published in its 2014/15 Levy Determination, follows a consultation, which was launched in September this year.

The 2014/15 levy is the last to be set under the first three-year period of the new levy framework implemented in 2012//13.

The Levy Determination, which sets out the Levy Rules, confirmed that the levy scaling factor and the scheme based levy multiplier will remain unchanged from the previous year at 0.73 and 0.000056 respectively.

The PPF also said that Dun & Bradsteet, the current insolvency risk provider, will be introducing a new scoring methodology for the UK early next year and would not be able to supply UK scores on the existing basis.

The fund said that it will not make changes to the Levy Rules because of this issue, which means the new scores will be included in the 12 month average calculations in the same way as the previous failure scores.

The PPF also said that it is now working with Experian, which will be its new insolvency risk provider from 2015/16, to develop a scoring methodology to improve transparency for levy payers and provide a better fit for the PPF universe.

An industry steering group will be working with the PPF to evaluate the new scoring methodology as part of a broader review of the levy. The PPF intends to consult in Spring 2014.

First published 12.12.2013

monique_simpson@wilmington.co.uk