DB Governance and Scheme Management

Expectations on the governance standards for UK pension schemes is ever increasing and a top priority for The Pensions Regulator.

Whether you require a governance or effectiveness review, an ongoing governance adviser, or a secretary for your trustee board, we can help you meet these increasing demands and maximise value on behalf of your members.

We can provide a range of services to meet your specific project or ongoing needs.

Strategy, planning and governance reviews

Driving alignment of trustees and key stakeholders
Setting strategic objectives and risk frameworks
Delivering best practice governance policies and processes
Oversight of advisory relationships, MNT and professional trustee selection processes
Assessing value for money and trustee effectiveness
Advice on maximising the effectiveness of your governance structure

Ongoing governance consulting and running of the scheme

Regular assessment against governance codes of practice
Own Risk Assessment ("ORA") drafting and advice
Effective risk identificaton and management
Delivering trustee training and annual training needs assessment
Secretariat function and coordination of committee and sub-committee meetings
Managing projects, budgets and invoicing
Coordinating the completion of statutory reporting and returns
Using delegated authority to handle member discretions
Maintaining a library of documentation and meeting management
Scheme management services including the option of full pensions management support
Facilitating Trustee Effectiveness reviews

Innovative digital solutions

Our advice is underpinned by innovative technology and digital expertise. Adapting to an ever more digital world, we have over 200 digital experts ranging from data scientists, modellers, technical architects, developers to UX designers, all dedicated to creating transformative digital solutions.

Our digital first approach makes sure we’re harnessing the latest technologies and agile delivery to meet your needs. Powered by the latest cloud technology, our tools and solutions are best in class, and continually updated to keep up with the latest digital developments.

Examples of our digital governance solutions include:

focalPoint is our secure online document library and meeting tool. It’s designed to help protect your information whilst running more efficient meetings. User permissions can be set to grant or restrict access to sensitive materials. It also works as a meeting manager allowing you to create virtual meeting packs at the click of a button.
Periskope is a pension risk management tool which helps visualise risks and challenges on a heat map so you can quickly identify the biggest issues and priorities accordingly. It’s interactive features such as voting buttons work well in virtual settings to engage users and help with group decision making such as strategic decision making or evaluating board effectiveness.

How does Periskope work?

Our facilitated workshops start with identifying the areas of a problem to be explored. Periskope then collates individual views on several questions, by voting on a visual heatmap.

Each individual is presented with all of the questions or challenges identified.
They each drag and drop their vote into a position on the screen to indicate their view.
The tool collates the individual responses for discussion, ensuring all individuals have an equal share of voice. Outliers often indicate an area for further discussion, or in some instances a training need.
Once all the issues have been agreed, you can use the tool to look at the scores for each area in one image, to draw out a conclusion and next steps to the problem considered.

If you would like to learn more about our innovative digital solutions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Governance services
Scheme Management services

Benefits of working with us

As industry standards become more tightly defined, including the need to demonstrate value for money for members, having and demonstrating an effective system of governance is more important now than ever before.

By working with us you’ll benefit from:

Better outcomes – Maximise governance effectiveness and spend more time on the strategic decisions that matter. You will benefit from our innovative approach. We actively contribute to industry thinking and are drivers for change in governance standards.
Greater confidence – ensure you meet regulatory expectations and secure your members’ benefits with confidence.
Long term partners – shape our services to find the right balance of support for your scheme, until the last pension is secured. We invest for the long term – including our technology to support governance and secretarial services.

Benefits of working with us

We provide support in the day to day running of schemes including formal secretariat duties.

By working with us you’ll benefit from:

A tailored approach – a core service to support your meetings through to running all aspects of your scheme. We recognise the importance of fit to deliver better decision making within your board.
Depth of resource and expertise– our large support team provides a depth of expertise as well as supporting succession planning and business continuity. We have a broad range of expertise and backgrounds
Engaging and innovative technology– our engaging Periskope system supports quality governance conversations on all topics in addition to being a full risk management system. Our focalPOINT system manages meetings and documentation securely online.

If you would like to find out more about our Scheme Management Services please don't hesitate to contact Laura or Charlotte.

Setting your DB Endgame Strategy

Join us for the third in our series of webinars, which are all designed to help corporate sponsors develop and then implement a comprehensive DB endgame strategy.

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