Pension governance consulting

Case study: Trustee policy review

A raft of policies had been adopted by this client when the corporate pension Trustee was set up in 2017, with others added in subsequent years. As a great deal has changed over that time, we reviewed the full suite of trustee policies.

Whilst some of the pension trustee’s policies required few or no changes, others had clearly become out of date. Our proposed amendments were tabled in the papers for review at the next pension trustee meeting.

Trustee policies and plans that needed updating included:

• Anti-money laundering – to reflect recent changes following an HMRC consultation.
• Benefit information & discretionary benefits – this had not been maintained and, as much had been picked up under operational procedures, we felt it could be deleted.
• Budget – to reflect a revised pension adviser fees process.
• Member Nominated Directors – we suggested updating this in conjunction with a review of the Trustee structure, protocols and sub-committee terms of reference.
• Business contingency plan & serious incident response plan – in the light of the pandemic experience and to reflect updated regulatory guidance.
• IDRP – we recommended changing this from a two-stage to a one-stage process which should result in quicker resolution of complaints.
• Cyber security – this new policy was needed given the heightened risks surrounding online security, particularly as the launch of a new member website increased this risk.

Case study: covenant self-assessment

Our client’s pension trustees decided not to obtain an independent covenant review, but needed help documenting their own assessment to formally record their considerations and evidence.

Read the full case study