Seven in 10 industry experts expect the proposed Value for Money (VFM) framework to reshape pension schemes’ investment strategies, according to polling conducted at the Pensions UK Investment Conference 2026.

During a session titled ‘Investing for Value’, 70 per cent of audience members said the VFM regime would change investment strategies, while 16 per cent said it would not and 14 per cent said they did not know.

Speaking during the session, The Pensions Regulator director of policy, Joey Patel, said the framework could also help improve retirement adequacy if it led to stronger investment performance.

“If it leads to just a one per cent improvement in investment returns for an average saver who starts saving at the age of 22, that has the potential to lead to a 30 per cent bigger pot,” she argued.

However, Patel warned that schemes should avoid making abrupt changes purely in response to VFM ratings.

“We have heard back from the market that people are looking at their investment strategies, but what we don’t want is knee-jerk reactions or uninformed decision-making just based on the rating a scheme gets,” she stated.

“VFM will shine a light across the market on how schemes are doing with their investment performance, but we want people to take sensible and informed decisions on their investment strategy and portfolios.”

Financial Conduct Authority head of market analysis and policy, Nike Trost, added that the VFM framework should be viewed as one part of a broader set of reforms affecting the pensions market.

“The data will help people make choices, but there’s a lot of other things that will feed into it and change the market,” she stressed, adding that together they would “change how schemes think about asset allocation”.

People’s Partnership deputy chief investment officer, Phil Butler, said the VFM regime could transform how savers engaged with their pensions by increasing transparency around performance.

Delegates were more divided on the potential impact of the framework on member outcomes.

Just over half (53 per cent) said VFM would improve outcomes slightly, while 16 per cent believed the improvement would be significant.

Meanwhile, 19 per cent said it would have no impact and 12 per cent said they were unsure.

Polling at the session also highlighted concerns about how the investment element of the framework would operate in practice.

When asked about the biggest challenges in the investment aspects of the process, 39 per cent of respondents pointed to the data metrics used, 24 per cent to investment herding, 20 per cent to the assessment process itself, and 11 per cent to data standardisation.

Butler argued that the most significant innovation within the framework would be the creation of a standardised and centralised dataset on scheme performance.

“Once that exists, comparison is inevitable,” he stated.

“Third parties will use this data and push it directly to consumers. It’s not really a question of whether VFM becomes consumer-facing, it’s a question of how soon after launch.”

With this in mind, Butler suggested that the behavioural impact of transparent, comparable data could ultimately prove more significant than the framework’s technical design, adding that increased transparency could shift competition across the pensions market.

“If done well, this regime will create a market where schemes compete on value, not just cost, and where savers are empowered to make more informed decisions,” he added.

However, Butler warned that agreeing on a robust data specification would be critical ahead of the framework’s implementation.

“We need to be collecting clean, comparable data next year, and that is a significant operational challenge.

“If the industry cannot agree and implement a strong data specification, the averages generated by the central repository will not be reliable.

“That would make it harder to regulate effectively and could undermine confidence in the regime at the very moment it launches.”

He also suggested regulators would need to play a key role in overseeing how performance data is presented once it becomes publicly accessible.

“The publication of comparable data will change the dynamics of this market,” Butler explained.

“It’s too important to be shaped solely by commercial interests once it becomes consumer-facing.

“Regulators will need to take ownership of how these metrics are presented and understood.

“If we get this right, VFM will be a catalyst for better behaviour across the system, leading to increased transparency, informed savers and a market where schemes genuinely compete on value, not just headline charges.”

Meanwhile, Trost noted that early feedback from the consultation suggested broad industry support for elements of the framework, particularly the use of forward-looking investment metrics (FLMs).

However, some industry responses to the consultation have warned that proposals encouraging the use of FLMs in performance scoring risked introducing what they described as “crystal-ball gazing” into scheme comparisons.

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