21st century trusteeship and governance

Topic:

Legal & governance

Date published:

Monday, 8 August 2016

HR Trustees would like to make clear our support for the focus on ensuring that the industry is served by trustees that best represent the interests of members. The environment for schemes is becoming increasingly complex and funding levels and sponsor finances mean that there are often no easy answers to the questions facing trustees today.

We append responses to the 13 questions posed here. We suggest that a distinction is created between underperforming schemes who have the resources to improve governance, processes and investment strategies and those who lack quality in these areas due to severe sponsor wherewithal shortfalls. In the former case, we broadly agree with TPR’s approach to create additional structure but not additional regulatory burdens upon them. In the latter case, it must be worth exploring mechanisms such as consolidation or routes to ease the paths to compromises that relieve the pressures on both sponsors and member outcomes.

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