Specialist Governance Projects

If you don’t have the right experienced professionals on board or the governance framework in place, our team can fill the gap by bringing our experience and technical knowledge, together with project management skills, always acting in the best interests of all current and potential members of the pension scheme.

We work with schemes to ensure they achieve the highest level of governance for the benefit of their members. Working with every size and type of scheme allows us to bring a unique perspective to our governance practices.

Trustee Effectiveness Assessments

• Overall approach, composition, roles, and responsibilities of the board
• Make-up, responsibilities, reporting and running of the committees
• Pension knowledge and ongoing training programmes
• Relationships with advisors, members, and sponsor
• Management and meetings
• Produce action-orientated objectives which seamlessly integrate within the business plan

Governance Framework Reviews

Effective governance is essential for the operational efficiency of every scheme.

We review:

• Planning and agenda preparation to ensure meetings focus on key priorities and strategic decisions are implemented effectively
• The integration between the risk register, business plan and IRM framework to ensure they cohesively articulate the scheme’s objectives
• All regular costs and value for money of advisors
• Budgets, quarterly monitoring and annual benchmarking
• Trustee roles and responsibilities documentation
• Committee terms of reference

Member-Nominated Trustee Selection 

Identifying and recruiting suitable Member Nominated Trustees can be difficult and time-consuming. We support Member Nominated Trustee elections or selections, and the surrounding framework.

This ensures that boards have diverse and experienced individuals who can support schemes to reach their overall objectives.

Integrated Risk Management Framework  

We create and monitor effective Integrated Risk Management frameworks which clearly articulate:

• Scheme objectives
• Risk capacity and appetite of the trustee and sponsor
• The key risks which could affect the scheme’s ability to reach its objectives and the mitigating actions
• Clear actions triggered by breach of pre-agreed parameters

Policy Development & Implementation

Pension schemes are managed through the policies and procedures they establish. It is essential that these are regularly reviewed and updated.

We undertake:

• Reviews and updating of existing policies in line with best practice and The Pensions Regulator requirements
• Gap analysis and implementation of new policies
• Periodic reviews
• Where appropriate, we tailor our template policies for individual scheme requirements.