UK Consults on Future of Pension Scheme Trusteeship, Governance 

A consultation issued by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) on its vision for the future of trusteeship and governance of occupational pension schemes is open for input through 24 Sep 2019. The key proposals and areas for consideration include:

• A review of the Trustee Knowledge and Understanding (TKU) code of practice and a move away from the current broad syllabus and toward competency-based standards that reflect the issues covered by TPR’s 21st Century Trusteeship campaign
• The need for legislation that would require trustees to demonstrate a minimum level of TKU and ongoing learning
• More diverse trustee boards in terms of skills, knowledge and perspectives
• The aim of having an accredited professional trustee on every board, although TPR acknowledges this would be difficult to achieve in the short term because of the large number of occupational schemes
• Stronger standards for sole trustees
• Ways to encourage the consolidation of micro and small defined contribution schemes that don’t meet trusteeship and governance standards and to ease the winding-up of small DC schemes

In addition to addressing issues in the consultation, TPR says it will focus on a range of governance and administration standards over the next two years.

Related Resources

• Future of Trusteeship and Governance Consultation (TPR, 2 Jul 2019)