Response to The Pension Regulator’s 'Future of Governance and Trusteeship' consultation

Commenting on The Pension Regulator’s Future of Governance and Trusteeship consultation, Darren Philp, Smart Pension's Director of Policy and Communications, said:

“This is an important activity by The Regulator which will hopefully lead to higher standards across all occupational pension schemes and better outcomes for members.

“The Regulator is rightly raising the bar and asking schemes to up their game. It could - and maybe should - have gone further, including introducing a new requirement for professional trustees on every board to up the pace of improvement, but the direction of travel is now clear, and all schemes will need to either shape up or ship out.

“Requirements to improve knowledge and understanding and to improve the diversity of trustee boards are both timely and necessary to ensure all trustees have the skills to effectively steward the pension savings of their members.

“The Regulator stresses that there are well-run smaller schemes out there, and these can perform for members provided that the employer is committed to the scheme and has made adequate resources available to do things properly. However, all too often this isn’t the case and too many smaller schemes suffer from poor governance. Again The Regulator is stressing it will act if these schemes fail to raise standards.”