The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has said that it will respect the information-sharing process outlined by the Work and Pensions Committee (WPC) after it was criticised for failing to share sufficient details of Project Bloom’s strategy for combatting pension scams.

After the WPC requested details of the strategy in February, TPR responded with a brief overview and later explained that a discussion with its parliamentary affairs team had led it to believe that the committee would prefer a version of the strategy that could be published freely to a full but confidential plan.

A 25 March letter from TPR stated: “The plan contains sensitive information from a number of Bloom agencies about how we are fighting the scourge of pension scams on the ground, both now and in the future. The document is classified as ‘Official – Sensitive’ meaning it has a high degree of security protection.

“We felt that if our operational tactics were to be published, it would be a gift to scammers who would, in effect, know our next move in the battle to protect savers. We therefore concluded that, given the nature of the information, we could not provide a full or redacted version of the plan, proposing instead to provide a detailed summary plan suitable for publication.”

The regulator acknowledged that it would now exercise more clarity in its communications with WPC, while senior TPR members will meet with the committee to discuss some of its current cases.

This was a response to WPC chair, Stephen Timms, who on 22 March sent a letter to TPR complaining about their denial of a request for Project Bloom’s strategic plan to be fully shared with the WPC.

Timms argued that TPR’s explanation that it could not share the strategy as it could not be published in the public domain was not a “clear and compelling reason to refuse a reasonable request by a select committee for information relevant to its work”.

His letter further explained: “The committee has asked me to write to you to express our disappointment that this request was declined. We accept that there may be reasons why it was not possible to share the plan, but these reasons have not been adequately explained to the committee.

“The committee would have been happy to consider a request that the Strategic Action Plan be treated as confidential or published only with redactions. We received no such request.”

He had also urged TPR to take steps to ensure “that we do not find ourselves in this position again” after cancelling his request for the full strategy by acknowledging that “pursuing this point further would risk delaying the publication of our report on pension scams”.

In a back and forth of letters, WPC chair Stephen Timms had kicked off the exchange by requesting details of the strategy in February after TPR referred to it while giving evidence at the committee’s inquiry into protecting pension savers.

The response from the regulator on 4 March was an outline of the plan and a progress report which included a short explanation of its current work and some of its recent successes.

The letter stated: “We are unable to provide a copy of the full strategic action plan as it would not be appropriate to share an operational plan that outlines approaches to stop pension scammers and publish it in the public domain. However, I hope the summary plan attached will be helpful to the committee.”

The WPC published its Protecting pension savers—five years on from the pension freedoms: Pension scams report in March, calling for technology firms to be held responsible for their role in allowing pension scams adverts to appear on their platforms.

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