Happy New Year! Here’s to wishing England every success in the World Cup this summer and the 15 Candidate cities for the England 2018 World Cup bid. Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can!

This can be the year to get to grips with administration, governance and communication – and show the Pensions Regulator just how well things can be done. Even small changes can lead to some big achievements.

The economic climate continues to be tough but making improvements to the way we work will avoid any big risks being taken and lead to faster recoveries.

To help you save time and money, Ash Shaw has noted 4 keys ways to being a successful trustee.

1. Go with what works for your scheme. You do not need to follow the crowd.
2. Agree a fixed fee with no nasty surprises. With careful budgeting requirements, extra fees are surprises you could do without!
3. Work with your consultants by having an early planning discussion (as part of your fixed fee of course) as this will make life easier, and bring about the changes the Regulator is demanding
4. Don’t be content with your auditor telling you that same as last year works. Keep in regular contact and decide what can be improved on this year.

One of our key areas of focus for this year is to help deliver improvements to governance for the Pensions Regulator, and help the potential 1,000,000 employers plan for pension scheme savings with auto-enrolment from 2012:

1. Internal controls – we will continue our drive to make the AAF 01/06 internal controls report on pension administrators accessible, transparent and timely;
2. Trustee Knowledge and Understanding (TKU) – providing clearer communication on planning and findings on pension audit risks with trustees, and recommendations to make the audit process easier and simpler for everyone;
3. Risk management – give examples of audit findings to update trustee risk register;
4. Data record keeping – highlight to trustees how their scheme data is helping or hindering our pension audit work;
5. Pension schemes in wind up – reporting our views back to the PPF (Pension Protection Fund) on their most recent guidance regarding accounts and audits.

If you want to get more knowledgeable about internal controls, Trustee Knowledge and Understanding updates, risk management, data record-keeping and pension schemes in wind up then contact Sally Tasker.

This month’s article summarises some of the issues noted by the Pensions Regulator (TPR) in its 2009 Governance survey. Please contact us should you wish to contribute to our next issue.

“Good governance will be critical to ensuring the safe and proper management of people's savings,”
Bill Galvin, Executive director, The Pensions Regulator, (24 November 2009)

The Pensions Regulator has clearly set out its intention to improve standards of governance and administration in its 2009 Governance survey issued towards the end of last year (24 November 2009). This 50 page Governance survey was at the forefront of TPR’s campaign to improve standards and get the employers and trustees ready for Pension Reform 2012.

Some of the key findings from this survey are:

1. Smaller DC schemes need to raise their standards of governance.
2. Understanding of clearance process remains low even though updated guidance was issued in June 2009.
3. DC scheme trustees should make more use of TPR’s toolkit. Notably, one in three DC schemes have yet to use it, whereas overall awareness and use by other scheme trustees is high.
4. Half of scheme trustees have yet to put in place processes to manage conflicts of interest.
5. Medium and smaller DC schemes are reviewing their investment strategy less than before, possibly due to the daily pressures on their business and the uncertainty in the investment market.
6. 41% of smaller schemes have yet to put a risk register in place. One-third of schemes are not very confident that they have the appropriate internal controls to monitor and mitigate risks. 57% of schemes do not have confidence in their internal controls on data transfer.
7. Only one in five schemes are confident that they communicate effectively with their members.
8. Two-thirds of members are invested in default schemes where these are offered.
9. Six out of ten small schemes do not use or consider using the guidance issued by the regulator. Only one-third of schemes have assessed their member communications in the last year, and only one quarter of schemes could state that their board communicates very effectively.

Section 1 has useful key questions regarding good governance questions and statistics for comparison with your scheme are on page 10, table 3.

Section 2 gives interesting details of how schemes monitor their:

• employer covenant (page 22),
• decision making and conflicts of interest (page 25),
• relations with advisers and service providers (page 27),
• appointment of providers ~(page 28),
• scheme administration (page 31),
• communications (page 38),
• fund choices (page 43)

For ease of reference here is the full 50 page report ‘Occupational pension scheme governance. A report on the 2009 scheme governance survey’.

To make full use of this survey, we suggest that scheme trustees and advisers print out this 2009 Governance survey and use it in bite-size chunks at meetings in order to review how well your scheme is managing each of its various aspects of governance, administration and communication.

If you would like to more about how to apply the learning from the 2009 governance survey to make improvements to your pension scheme then get in touch with Andrew Riley.

In 2009, we had our best year ever. You asked us to keep our focus on personal service delivered by experienced professionals whilst growing our business.

We met this challenge by bringing on board five new team members – Carl, Lisa, Kirsty, Peter, and Sally and winning over one client a month. Ash Shaw now has over 70 clients.

During December, our Elite Team met to review and update our vision, strategies and goals.

Our plans to make 2010 the best year ever are:

• review our processes to improve how easy it is to do business with us. For example, using best practice from other industries and countries;
• demonstrate how we add real value to trustees and their advisers. For example, agreed fees with no nasty surprises;
• improve how we take the stress and fear out of what has always felt like a hassle to trustees. For example, changing advisers
• help our assurance reporting clients by contributing to their success through maximising their opportunity to build business and manage their risks more skilfully. For example, producing an Internal Controls Report that is seen and admired by your team, clients and prospective clients.

We look forward to finding out from you over 2010 your comments and advice on what we can do to make your life easier, better and more successful.

To help us help you more swiftly, please send us a brief description of your situation (or a copy of last year's signed accounts if you are looking for new auditors) to Sally Tasker and let us know when would be a convenient time to call you.

If someone else has sent you this web link, why not make sure you get your own copy in future? Sign up to Ash Shaw's free monthly email newsletters and receive the latest information, news, ideas and advice. Focused on small- and medium sized pension schemes, these mailings tell exactly what you need to know, without wasting your valuable time. Sign up now.