Independent Trustee | Professional Trustee | Dalriada Trustees

Guest blog: Planet Trustee meets Planet Admin

We’re delighted to have experienced Trustee and MND, John Heatly, provide his take on some of the issues Trustees can face when working with Pension Administrators as well as providing some advice on how to work in harmony. “Why hasn’t it been done? – it was obviously important….” A frustration Trustees sometimes feel with their pension administrators. [...]

Dalriada: first UK trustees firm to receive data security accreditation

Leading professional pension trustee firm Dalriada Trustees has completed ISO/EIC 27001, an internationally recognised standard for Information Security Management. ISO/IEC 27001 is fast becoming the international touchstone for effective, secure information management practices that protect organisations and ensure their compliance with data protection, privacy and computer misuse regulations. The application and use of this standard [...]

Occupational Pensions – Mass Communication, misinformation and missed opportunities

Shouldn't the increase in communication channels have helped trustees to engage and educate pension scheme members about their schemes? Traditional methods still have a place but opportunities have arisen to further the reach of valuable pension information.

Our pensions review of 2011

Just a few months into the New Year and we are already making history! Dalriada managed the first ever transfer of a contracted out scheme to the Financial Assistance Scheme. It’s May now and tPR urges trustees to seek professional help to understand the employer covenant. Claire McGruer explains how this potentially costly exercise need [...]

Testing the boundaries

Tom Nimmo looks at the changing landscape of data management and urges trutees to recognise where there is still room for improvement. It is now over twelve months since the Pensions Regulator (tPR) published its Guidance on Record Keeping. The guidance emphasises the importance that tPR places on scheme data quality. For many in the [...]

Will plugging the hole in the ozone layer fix the hole in your scheme funding?

Chris Roberts of Dalriada Trustees considers envrionmentally sensitive investments and whether ‘going green’ is really a viable funding option. I was reading a recent article highlighting a report by “Forum for the Future” pushing for major investors such as Pension Schemes to use their collective “financial muscle” to push greener investing. The argument being that as the [...]

A Trustee’s guide to identifying your statutory employer(s)

The Pensions Regulator (tPR) has issued a statement reminding trustees of the importance of identifying the statutory employer(s) of their scheme. A statutory employer is obligated to meet the scheme specific funding requirements, to pay Section 75 in an insolvency situation or trigger entry into a PPF assessment period. Statutory employers have been defined by [...]

Covenant reviews need not break the bank

With the Pensions Regulator guiding schemes towards seeking external covenant monitoring, Dalriada Trustees’ Claire McGruer argues it does not have to be an expensive exercise. It is the trustees’ ongoing responsibility to actively and regularly monitor the employer covenant to ensure they can perform their role effectively on behalf of the scheme’s membership. Within all [...]

Independent Trustee Dalriada completes first-ever transfer of contracted-out scheme to FAS

Independent Trustee, Dalriada Trustees Limited, has today successfully completed the transfer of one of two schemes to the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS). Together, these two schemes represent the first contracted-out pension schemes to transfer to FAS. The transferring scheme is the NA Motors (1984) Pension Scheme whose sponsoring company, a Ford car dealership formerly based [...]

The hidden cost of refunding pension contributions

When a member leaves a trust based pension scheme within 3 months of joining, the Scheme may require the member to receive a refund of their own contributions (net of tax and contracting out deductions). Should the member leave between 3 months and 2 years of joining the Scheme, the Trustee(s) must give them a [...]