The performance of the UK's Pensions Regulator has been rated ‘very good’ or ‘good’ by nearly 80% of respondents to its latest report on 'perceptions.'

The "eleventh annual perceptions tracker report" looks at how well the regulator, which supervises work-based pension schemes in the UK, carries out its statutory objectives. The comments are positive for the third year running and marred only slightly by the fact that the survey has been conducted by the regulator itself.

This year, interested parties were asked in greater depth than ever before about their awareness of pension scams, with 85% saying that they knew what action to take if they suspected a pension scheme to be a scam, while 88% were confident that the trustee board knew what action should be taken.

Pensions savers’ awareness of scams is still low, with 13% saying that they are unaware of scams completely, so the regulator continues, in its own peculiar way of writing, to urge trustees to "communicate about pension scams."

• Among 'external audiences,' whatever those may be, 78% rated the regulator’s performance as ‘very good’ or ‘good’.
• 75% of employers rated the regulator’s performance as ‘very good’ or ‘good’, compared with just over 52% in 2014.
• Among respondents, 91% thought of the regulator as a ‘trusted source of information’.
• 72% believed the regulator to be 'approachable' - up from 65% last year.

New questions were included relating to the regulator’s statutory objective to minimise any adverse impact on the sustainable growth of an employer. Almost two-thirds (65%) agreed that "the regulator takes into account the needs of the scheme and the employer in a balanced way."