Catalogue description Records of the Registrar of Non-participating Employments

In November 1959, the Registrar of Non-Participating Employments (RONPE) was appointed under the National Insurance Act of that year and the designated posts of Registrar and Deputy Registrar were confirmed. Under this and subsequent legislation, the Registrar was to satisfy himself of the present and continuing soundness of private pension schemes electing to contract out of the Graduated Pension Scheme that had also been set up under the 1959 Act (although planning for the implementation of the Scheme had begun in 1958).

The Graduated Pension Scheme provided that all employers and employees would pay National Insurance contributions at a rate graduated according to the employee's pay, as well as the flat rate contribution already being paid. If an employer had a pension scheme, application to RONPE could be made for exemption for the employees in the scheme. If successful, the employees would forgo any benefits in the Graduated Pension Scheme. This procedure was sometimes referred to as "contracting-out".

Applications to RONPE were called 'elections' and written permission was in the form of a Certificate of Non-Participation. RONPE's responsibility was to check the election and ascertain that the scheme satisfied the required standards before issuing a certificate. The financial soundness of the scheme would then be monitored by RONPE and certificates could be cancelled if the scheme failed to maintain the necessary standards.

Commencement date for the Graduated Pension Scheme was 6 April 1961 but the Certification Regulations explaining what was necessary to make an election came into immediate effect in December 1959. The first certificate was issued on 1 May 1960. By 1961 28,367 elections had been received and 27,854 certificates issued.

The National Insurance Act 1963 raised the standard required of employers' pension schemes to obtain or retain a certificate. The National Insurance Act 1965 consolidated all the legislation affecting the work of RONPE and became the source of all the powers it possessed. The Social Security Act 1973 established the Occupational Pensions Board (OPB), with responsibility for administering new legislation on contracting-out. The Act repealed the National Insurance Act 1965 and provided for transitional regulations. The Graduated Pension Scheme was to be wound up with effect from 6 April 1975, when all certificates would be effectively cancelled.

RONPE continued to monitor the financial soundness of schemes, to check amendments to schemes' rules and answer enquiries for the 32,000 'live' schemes still on its books. RONPE's interest in a scheme would end only when all the benefits accumulated in the scheme in lieu of benefits forgone in the Graduated Pension Scheme had ceased to exist. This occurred when either,

• (a) all the employees entitled to the benefits had either ceased to be in that employment or, if still in service, had had their benefits preserved by the employer who, for this purpose, had brought the benefits back into the state scheme or given a written assurance that the employees had a right to the benefits; or
• (b) OPB took over the financial monitoring of the scheme.

RONPE ceased operating in April 1980 and the handful of schemes still remaining were notified to the Non-Participating Employments Section of the Department of Health and Social Security in Newcastle.