Actuarial work in the UK sits under a two-tier arrangement people often describe wrongly. The Financial Reporting Council sets the technical standards and oversees how the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries regulates its members — it does not regulate individual actuaries directly. Knowing which body does what matters when something goes wrong.
The technical actuarial standards
The FRC's standards are numbered by domain and each has a current version and effective date. As at today:
- TAS 100: General Actuarial Standards — version 2.0, effective 1 July 2023. It contains the requirements applying to all technical actuarial work within the geographic scope, and must be applied by all IFoA members;
- TAS 200: Insurance — version 2.0, effective 1 January 2025;
- TAS 300: Pensions — version 2.1, effective 1 November 2025;
- TAS 310: Collective Money Purchase Pensions — version 1.1, effective 31 July 2026;
- TAS 400: Funeral Plans — version 3.0, effective 17 July 2023;
- AS TM1: Statutory Money Purchase Illustrations — version 5.2, effective 6 April 2026.
AS TM1 is the one non-actuaries encounter, because it specifies the assumptions and methods behind the projection on every money purchase annual statement. When those projections change shape across the market in the same year, a TM1 revision is usually why.
Alongside the standards the FRC publishes Technical Actuarial Guidance, including material on models, on proportionality, and on what counts as technical actuarial work within the geographic scope. Proportionality guidance is the practical one: the standards are not intended to impose the same documentation on a small scheme as on a life insurer.
Where an actuary is legally required
Two statutory duties account for most actuarial work in the pensions field, and both are narrower than commonly assumed.
The appointment duty. Section 47 of the Pensions Act 1995 requires the trustees or managers of an occupational pension scheme to appoint an auditor and an actuary, and a fund manager where the scheme's assets include investments.
The qualification is the important part. Under the scheme administration regulations, money purchase schemes are expressly exempt from the duty to appoint an actuary, other than to the extent that they provide collective money purchase benefits. So the scheme actuary duty is in practice a defined benefit duty. It is why a master trust — money purchase by definition — has no scheme actuary. There are further exemptions, including for schemes with fewer than 100 members in listed categories.
The auditor exemptions are different again: unfunded schemes, schemes with fewer than two members, small schemes under twelve members where all members are trustees, and certain superannuation funds.
A drafting note for anyone quoting the section: the statute says "actuary". The term scheme actuary comes from the surrounding scheme funding framework rather than from section 47 itself.
The valuation duty. Section 224 of the Pensions Act 2004 requires trustees to obtain actuarial valuations at intervals of not more than one year, or at intervals of not more than three years if they obtain actuarial reports for the intervening years. The familiar shorthand — a full valuation at least every three years with annual reports in between — is accurate.
The deadline everyone quotes is not in the Act. Section 224 requires that a valuation or report be received within a prescribed period after its effective date, and the scheme funding regulations set that period: 15 months for a valuation, 12 months for an actuarial report. Where the Regulator has given directions, the period compresses to three or six months depending on timing. For valuations with an effective date on or after 22 September 2024, the content requirements include scheme maturity and funding level assessments.
The precise formulation, if you need one: at least every three years, with the valuation to be received within 15 months of its effective date.
Where actuarial and accounting work meet
Three points of contact generate most of the friction.
The accounting number is not the funding number. A scheme's IAS 19 or FRS 102 position and its technical provisions are calculated on different bases for different purposes, and a sponsor can have an accounting surplus and a funding deficit at the same date. Explaining that to a board is a recurring task rather than a one-off.
Audit of the scheme. The scheme auditor's work and the actuary's are separate engagements with separate reports, and the auditor's statement about contributions is tied to the schedule the actuary's valuation drove. Delays in one propagate into the other.
Insurance reporting. For insurers, technical provisions under TAS 200 and the financial statements are built from the same underlying data, and reconciling them is where errors surface.
Oversight and discipline
The FRC sets and maintains technical actuarial standards and assesses their effectiveness through a monitoring programme. It supervises the IFoA's regulation of its members rather than the members themselves. And it provides independent investigation and disciplinary hearings in public interest actuarial cases through the FRC Actuarial Scheme.
The practical consequence: a complaint about an individual actuary's conduct goes to the IFoA, while a matter raising public interest concerns can be taken up by the FRC. A trustee board dissatisfied with actuarial work should know which route it is on before writing the letter.
Commissioning actuarial work well
Four questions are worth asking before an engagement starts. Which TAS applies, and has the proportionality guidance been considered for a scheme of this size? What basis is being used, and how will it reconcile to the accounting figures the sponsor reports? Who is doing the modelling, and is the model documented to the standard the guidance expects? And when is the effective date, counted back from the 15-month deadline rather than forward from convenience?
That last one prevents the most common avoidable problem in the field, which is a valuation signed off under time pressure because the effective date was chosen without reference to the deadline it started.
Acumon works alongside scheme actuaries through pension scheme audit and insurance audit, with valuations and financial modelling where the question is commercial. If your scheme's next valuation effective date is more than nine months old, the 15-month clock is the one to check.