Sole trusteeship

It is increasingly hard to find committed and qualified trustees, so more and more pension schemes are appointing a sole professional trustee. This can be a cost-effective solution with sponsoring employers benefiting from regular, open (but challenging) dialogue.

Why appoint a sole trustee?

Our sole trustee schemes are defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC) or hybrid and many face common complexities and challenges, for example:

• Agreeing a recovery plan that balances the interests of member security with sustainability of the pension scheme sponsor.
• Implementing an investment strategy that reduces volatility but takes into account the sponsor’s risk appetite.
• Experience of poor service standards or risk averse advice leading to high costs and/or ineffective solutions.
• Past administration and documentation failings leading to incorrect benefit calculations, over/under payments that need to be dealt with and decisions to be made over potential litigation.
• Ensuring value for members (VFM) in relation to DC benefits including an appropriate suite of investment choices and default fund to provide members with a good outcome.
• Improving member communications so they can better understand and appreciate their options and benefits.
• Complex historic benefit structures.
• Ongoing litigation against a legal adviser, consultant and scheme actuary.
• Escalating advisory fees that need to be better managed.
• Handling complaints via the IDRP, from TPAS and the Pension Ombudsman.

Taking away the governance, day-to-day operations and cost of a full pension trustee board and replacing it with a skilled, dedicated professional sole trustee can make it a lot easier and efficient for everyone. An experienced sole trustee establishes the right focus and governance, provides wide market knowledge to draw on and ensures an effective working relationship with the pension scheme sponsor.

Example sole trustee appointment

Read the full case study

The value of a team

We have a knowledge sharing, team based approach that ensures at least two named individuals will have a detailed knowledge of your pension scheme. It means someone will always available to respond to queries, manage the advisers and progress trustee business - you are never dependent on one person.

To discuss whether a sole trustee appointment is the right route for your pension scheme, please contact us.