Trustee board constantly changing

The client

A company with a turnover of circa £4m per annum which has a small closed defined benefit scheme.

The problem

The trustees had all been in place for a number of years and had all retired from active employment.  The increasing demands placed on trustees by legislation and Codes of Practice had led to some trustees wishing to resign from the Board. This would have inevitably meant that a great deal of experience and knowledge would have been lost. There had also been some turnover in the Scheme advisers.

The solution

By appointing a professional trustee who worked with the trustee board for the next twelve months the Trustee Board was able to capture the experience and information retained by the trustees.

This included one to one meetings with trustees, asking them to document Scheme history and to ensure that they shared documents which they held but were not known to others.

As part of the knowledge transfer an electronic documentation retention tool was introduced to ensure that a full Scheme history was held and as importantly available to all trustees and their advisers. We also recommended a change of Trustee Secretary was not providing the level of support that was needed.

The result

The planned changes to the Trustee Board meant that by the time of the next scheme valuation, there was a knowledgeable trustee board in place with the energy to deal with the challenges of the significant pension deficit.