Work with your pension trustees

Important

You are unlikely to be a sponsoring employer if your scheme is used by lots of different employers and is provided by a specialist provider, such as an insurance or financial services company.

You should make sure that your trustees have the time and resources they need to run the scheme well. They should have a budget to get good advice, and the right training and skills.

You also need to pay the right contributions, provide accurate information about your staff and meet your ongoing duties as part of automatic enrolment. We will take action if you fail to meet your legal duties.

Working closely with your trustees will help them to:

control costs
safely pay the right contributions to the scheme
invest the contributions effectively
pay the right benefits to people who are taking their pension
minimise risks
take opportunities

This should help you to:

provide a well-run, good value pension for staff who are already part of the scheme
attract new staff who are looking for good employee benefits

Defined contribution (DC) schemes

If you provide a DC scheme for your staff, they will need to take certain decisions about their pension.

Work with the trustees to make sure that scheme members receive the right information and understand their retirement options.

Defined benefit (DB) schemes

Helping your trustees to run a DB scheme better should lead to better investment returns for the risk taken to produce that return. This will improve the funding levels for your scheme.

You should work closely with the trustees to:

assess your ability as an employer to support the scheme – known as the employer covenant
make sure your scheme is appropriately funded
manage risks to scheme funding objectives

Appointing a professional trustee

Professional trustees can bring real benefits to a board through their expertise and experience, sharing knowledge and good practice across the schemes they are appointed to.

If you are appointing a professional trustee to your board you should choose someone who meets the professional trustee standards. Once the accreditation framework is in place you should confirm that they are accredited.

Sole trustees

It is important that trustees act in the interests of scheme members and can make independent decisions. If you are thinking about appointing a sole trustee you should make sure they meet the additional standards for sole professional trustees.