Editorial: Back to school
First off, thank you to all those who attended our Leadership of DC Pensions event last week. You can read a review of the day in tweets, pictures and comments on our new blog at pensions-expert.com/the-cut.
This year we have split our flagship annual Leadership of Pensions event into two half-day programmes, each targeting the challenges facing defined contribution and defined benefit schemes. The DB event is planned for November, so keep your diaries free.
This is part of a series of focused events the Financial Times Live team has put together, held at the FT’s London headquarters. The next is focused on derisking and the latest practice in this growing market, to be held on June 30.
As I said last Wednesday, the timing of a purely DC event could not have been more appropriate given the swirl of regulation and guidance produced by the regulator, the DWP and the Treasury over the past year or so.
You will have already read the pensions minister’s latest thoughts on the guidance guarantee, and two nationwide employers’ reflections on what the Budget changes mean for pre-retirement communication.
But I’d like to dwell on the regulator’s idea of having a required qualification for trustee chairs and independent trustees. One of the topics that kept popping up at the summit’s governance panels was improving trustee knowledge and understanding.
Illustrator: Ben Jennings
This title has reported on the development of the regulator’s Trustee Toolkit since its launch in 2006. Five years on, only six out of 10 trustees who had signed up had made it past the first module, but its 2012 refresh saw a boost in how many modules had been completed, as we reported last year.
Our panel discussed whether completing this toolkit should be mandatory, but the room was divided on further compulsory trustee qualifications. The proposal that schemes should have a qualified individual, similar to the ‘approved person’ at a company signed off by the FCA/PRA, seems both more sensible and achievable.
Minimum standards for schemes will be useless unless we can create minimum standards for those taking the lead on managing them.
Ian Smith is editor of Pensions Expert. You can follow him on Twitter @iankmsmith and the team @pensions_expert.