Pension Governance Support

Operational Review

We can help you assess your pension scheme operations and advise you on areas that could give rise to operational efficiencies, based on our experience across a breadth of clients of all sizes, including trustee clients, in-house pensions teams and public sector arrangements. We do so using a number of different methods, designed to address your specific concerns.

How We’ve Helped Our Clients

We were appointed to carry out a triennial governance and trustee effectiveness review for the pension scheme of a large UK Bank. The report resulted in a number of changes, including a restructuring of their committees, revising the terms of reference and reporting between committees and board, and ensuring all committee and board activities were aligned to the business plan.

Having a governance framework that is fit for purpose, works for your pensions team and allows those involved to do their job as efficiently as possible, without gaps or overlaps, will give you the assurance that your governance structure is appropriate. This helps ensure the smooth running of your pension arrangement, saving unnecessary time and therefore costs.

Review of Operational Structure

Trustees and corporate pensions teams have more and more on their agendas, with many competing demands on their time. It is not uncommon for trustees to be presented with 200+ page meeting packs, often within a week of a meeting, which they are expected to digest in full and make informed decisions on.

Our traditional governance reviews include one of more of the following:

Completion of our Governance Viewpoints questionnaire, designed with the help of Behave London (behavioural scientists) to remove biases from the questions, and ensuring that focus is on desired future state, rather than anchoring in present state.
An assessment against the General Code of Practice Effective System of Governance expectations and the creation of additional policies to address any gaps identified.
Interviewing individuals involved in the pension scheme (trustees, pensions support team, governance committees) to seek views on areas for improvement.
Observations of meetings, including commentary on the volume and effectiveness of the papers presented to support effective decision making.
A review of the trustees' or corporates' governance manual, policies and processes used to support the running of the pensions scheme.
A review of the structure of the board, sub-committees and pensions team, the terms of reference of each and the reporting between each party.