Interim scheme secretary and governance services (hybrid scheme)

Context

A Hybrid scheme with over £1.5bn of assets and over 10,000 members to which IGG is a co-trustee and Chair.

The challenge

Following a retirement within the in-house pension governance team, the Pensions Manager was the sole dedicated resource. The Company had decided to consult employees on the closure of the scheme to future accrual creating additional work and time pressure whilst at the same time the Scheme’s triennial actuarial valuation negotiations were ongoing. The Pensions Manager therefore needed immediate “self-starting” Scheme Secretarial support to enable them to focus on the consultation and valuation negotiations.

Our approach

We were able to provide two team members to work flexibly with the Pensions Manager to support the Trustee Board and Investment and Administration subcommittees and working groups through the preparation of agendas, minutes, actions logs and liaising with advisers as required. Our experience also enabled us to operate the death benefit discretion process with the trustee through its online portal.

The outcomes

Over the five months of our interim appointment (prior to the appointment of an additional permanent resource internally) we fully supported two quarterly Trustee Board meetings, three investment sub-committee meeting and 2 administration committee.

In addition, we carried out a review of the Scheme’s website to identify which areas required modifications following closure of the Scheme to future benefit accrual and made arrangements for these modifications to be made.