Occupational Pension Schemes (Member Nominated Trustees & Directors) Regulations 2005
Comments from ACCA
September 2005
ACCA is pleased to comment on the above consultation document. The only comment we would like to make on the proposals is to query the need to move quite so quickly towards the implementation of the Government’s favoured 50% threshold for member-nominated trustees and directors.
The new legislation obliging schemes to ensure that one third of their trustees are member-nominated does not become fully effective until 2007; the Department is nonetheless proposing that a new, threshold of 50% be brought in as from 2009. We consider that this timetable would not allow sufficient time for the recent changes to bed in before pushing forward with the new, much stricter threshold. It may not, in the event, be quite as straightforward as the Government thinks to locate large numbers of employees who will be suitable for the role and prepared to take on the responsibilities and liabilities of trustees.
These responsibilities and liabilities have been very substantially increased by the Pensions Act 2004 and it would not be advisable for any person to put themselves forward for appointment unless they were aware of the full implications of the role and prepared to acquire the knowledge and skills which the law now requires of trustees. The difficulty of locating suitable volunteers should not be under-estimated, and the Government should in our view avoid giving the impression that filling positions on the board of trustees is simply a question of representation.
We therefore recommend that any implementation date for the Government’s favoured 50% threshold be deferred until such time as a review of the operation of the one-third rule can be carried out and its effectiveness assessed.