Minimising the risk of a conflict of interest when your actuarial valuation is due is a key reason why you may make an interim independent trustee appointment. Balancing defined benefit (DB) pension scheme funding requirements against the need to invest in your business can be struggle for all companies, particularly if you are small or medium sized.
A pension trustee board often comprises senior employees of the scheme’s sponsoring employer. When a formal actuarial valuation is carried out, scheme funding negotiations often become difficult to manage as company appointed trustees become conflicted, especially those responsible for making strategic or financial decisions on behalf of the scheme sponsor.
By appointing a PSGS professional trustee on a short or fixed term basis when you need it most, we can ease conflicts of interest and ensure pension scheme funding negotiations are completed smoothly and swiftly. As independent trustee, we negotiate with the company and enable conflicted trustees to abstain from relevant discussions and decision-making, or stand in the employer's shoes when they need to.
An interim independent trustee appointment is a cost effective way to manage challenging pensions situations and will terminate when pension funding negotiations are complete and the actuarial valuation is signed off.
Our client: a leading retailer
The issue
The Pensions Regulator(TPR) raised concerns the presence of senior members of staff on the pension trustee board may present a conflict of interest.
The solution
To allay TPR’s concerns, the sponsoring employer appointed us to the pension trustee board as a professional trustee. Our role was to consider the issues that had given rise to the conflicts from an independent perspective and update TPR.
We worked with the sponsoring employer to put appropriate policies and procedures in place. We then met with TPR and explained how any potential conflicts would be identified and managed in the future.
If you would like to find out how an interim independent trustee appointment may benefit your pension scheme, please contact us.
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PSGS and PS Governance Services are trading names of Punter Southall Governance Services Limited
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