Current position
Conditions for joining
There are a number of legislative conditions which an applicant must fulfil before admission on to the Independent Trustee Register. The applicant must also continue to meet these conditions to remain on the register. The conditions fall into two categories:
- fact-based (ie the conditions are met or not); and
- judgement-based (ie in the light of TPR’s assessment, whether the applicant meets - and continues to meet - the criteria)
The fact-based conditions
- The applicant must not be the subject of a prohibition order or suspension order, or disqualified from being a trustee of a trust scheme on any of the prescribed grounds.
- Where the applicant is not an individual, every officer and every key person must satisfy certain conditions.
- The applicant must have premises in the United Kingdom from which it conducts its trustee business and must disclose the address of those premises to TPR (we will expect those applicants with presences in other jurisdictions to provide an explanation of how they will safeguard the assets of UK schemes).
- The applicant must agree to:
- have costs and fees scrutinised by an independent adjudicator and be bound by that adjudicator as to fees and costs
- TPR disclosing his name, business address and the specialist areas of trustee work on a version of the trustee register, which is publicly available
- comply with TPR’s reasonable requests to provide information
- inform TPR as soon as is reasonably practicable if they become disqualified
The judgement-based conditions
- TPR must be satisfied that the applicant has, and continues to have, 'sufficient relevant experience' of occupational pension schemes.
- TPR must be satisfied that the applicant is, and continues to be, a 'fit and proper’ person to act as a trustee of an occupational pension scheme.
- TPR must be satisfied that the applicant operates, and continues to operate, 'sound administrative and accounting procedures’.
- TPR must be satisfied that the applicant has, and continues to have, 'adequate indemnity insurance’ cover.
All applicants must meet each of the fact-based and judgement-based conditions. In addition, where the applicant is a company, partnership or limited liability partnership, some of its main individuals also must meet some of the fact-based and judgement-based conditions.
TPR's criteria for the judgement-based conditions
| Condition | TPR's criteria |
|---|---|
| Sufficient relevant experience |
Both individuals and Key Persons should have had at least five years of regular or continuous experience as a trustee of occupational pension schemes up to the point of the application. Non-individual applicants should have had at least three years of regular or continuous experience as a trustee of occupational pension schemes up to the point of the application. Compliance will be checked on an annual basis. |
| Fit and proper |
TPR will seek to be satisfied that the applicant has the qualities of fitness and propriety to be a trustee. All individual applicants, all Key Persons and Officers will need to demonstrate they have a minimum level of understanding of the nature of trusteeship (eg by completing TPR’s Trustee toolkit) as part of TPR’s assessment of whether these individuals have met this test. Compliance will be checked on an annual basis (or whenever any changes are notified to TPR by the applicant). |
| Sound administrative and accounting procedures |
TPR has adopted an audit and assurance framework (developed with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales). TPR requires an unqualified independent assurance report from a reporting accountant submitted by the applicant, upon application and on an annual basis. TPR uses this assurance report to help determine whether the legal requirement to have ‘sound administrative and accounting procedures’ has been met. For more information go to assurance reporting framework. |
| Adequate indemnity insurance cover |
The applicant will need to provide their insurance policy / certification of insurance confirming:
The applicant must have sufficient resources in its business to cover its policy excess. Compliance will be checked on an annual basis (or whenever there are any changes (which must be notified to TPR by the applicant). |
Key Persons and Officers for corporate applicants: guidance
Corporate applicants for the trustee register may have one or more Key Persons or Officers.
‘Officer’ overview
An Officer is:
- anybody working for the corporate applicant whose signature may authorise a transaction involving the assets of a scheme that the applicant is a trustee for
- every director, member of the committee of management, chief executive, designated member in relation to a limited liability partnership or partner who has ‘significant influence’ over the management of trustee work
- an individual who’s a shareholder with 10% or more of the applicant’s shares, where this means the shareholder has ‘significant influence over the management of the applicant’
Where low-level administrative staff deal with an applicant’s payments of benefits, we will not generally treat them as Officers if these transactions need sign-off at a higher level. Similarly, we will not treat third-party administrators as Officers where trustees have delegated the authority to authorise transactions like these to them.
Some applicants delegate the authority to authorise transactions involving scheme assets to third-party administrators. Where these third-party administrators also monitor compliance with the terms of the authorisation within the applicant, we’ll consider them Officers.
What we mean by ‘significant influence’ over pension trustee work
Whether someone has ‘significant influence over the management of the pension trustee work’ is something we assess on a case-by-case basis. We may consider someone to have ‘significant influence’ in this sense if their role involves any of the following, either individually or as part of a group:
- setting business targets
- deciding what resources should be allocated to trustee work
- setting fee levels or hourly rates for trustee work
- deciding how to invest or allocate scheme assets and other parts of the trustee business
- deciding on the most appropriate ways to identify, monitor and manage conflicts of interest
Where individuals set fee levels or rates for trustee work or hold 10% or more shares in the applicant’s trustee business, we will assume they exercise ‘significant influence’ over management of the applicant’s business unless they can demonstrate otherwise.
Based on the definition of ‘Officer’ in the regulations, we expect Officers to have a basic understanding of trusteeship. One way they can demonstrate this is by completing our Trustee Toolkit. However, Officers who do not have any experience acting as a trustee can still meet the fit and proper requirements if they show an understanding of trusteeship with other forms of evidence.
‘Key Person’ overview
We use the term ‘Key Person’ for individuals who have ‘overall management responsibility’ for a corporate applicant’s pension trustee work.
This means being accountable or responsible for all the pension trustee work the applicant does. In organisations with a hierarchy, the Key Person is usually an individual with ultimate responsibility or accountability for this work. For example, this person could be a managing director or chief executive.
Some corporate applicants share management responsibility for their trustee work among multiple individuals. They’ll have multiple people who are ‘ultimately responsible’ for the organisation’s pension trustee work. These organisations will have more than one Key Person.
Our interpretation of the definition of ‘Key Person’ also includes individuals who may hold the role temporarily or on someone else’s behalf. For example, there may be individuals in your organisation who aren’t ordinarily Key Persons but might take over a Key Person’s duties if they were temporarily unable to fulfil them. We would consider these individuals to be Key Persons too and ask that you identify them as part of your application.
Applications
It's important that you read these notes carefully before completing the application forms.
The purpose of the application process is to enable us to obtain information and assurances from the applicant in order that we can assess whether the applicant satisfies the judgement-based and fact-based conditions. This assessment will take place for the purpose of registering the applicant on to the register and, if registration is successful, further assessments will take place on an annual basis in order for us to assess if the applicant continues to satisfy the conditions.
Although requests for information in the forms are split into sections relating to each of the conditions, the information provided may be relevant to TPR's assessment of the other conditions and may be used accordingly.
We may wish to seek further information from the applicant following our review of the application forms. We may also wish to arrange a meeting with the applicant, either at their premises or at TPR's offices.