You have up to six months to gain the relevant trustee knowledge and understanding you need to carry out your role and fulfil your duties. However, you need to be equipped to be able to make any decisions that may arise in the meantime.
To do this effectively, you must be familiar with the scheme’s documentation. You must also declare any conflicts of interest.
Our guide for new trustees helps you get to grips with your new obligations as a trustee. It also provides more information about the trustee board and what to expect at your first trustee board meeting.
The obligations of trustees include:
Relevant knowledge and understanding means trustees must have a working knowledge of:
Trustees must also have knowledge and understanding of:
Training is an important feature of a well-run scheme. Trustee training should be planned and managed by doing a ‘training needs’ analysis (or training plan) and keeping a log of all training undertaken.
To help you get the knowledge and understanding you need we provide a free online learning programme that you should complete, unless you arrange the equivalent learning. You must log in or sign up to use the Trustee toolkit.
You should have access to the following:
If you’re a corporate trustee, you need to know the principal contents of your memoranda and articles of understanding. These should reflect the trust deed and rules of the scheme.
The module ‘Introducing pension schemes’ includes a tutorial related to important scheme documents. You can also download a guide explaining the most common documents from this module. You must log in or sign up to use the Trustee toolkit.
The statement of investment principles (SIP) must include your policy on:
The module ‘An introduction to investment’ covers investment in a pension scheme including setting an investment strategy, the statement of investment principles, types of asset and risk and reward. You must log in or sign up to use the Trustee toolkit.
As a trustee of a defined benefit scheme, you are responsible for the statement of funding principles.
The scheme funding provisions require you to:
The module ‘DB recovery plans, contributions and funding principles’ provides some further information on statements of funding principles. You must log in or sign up to use the Trustee toolkit.
Conflicts of interest can crop up from time to time, and as long as they are dealt with properly, there is often no reason to stop being a trustee. You must declare actual and potential conflicts of interest involving you, and persons connected to you (eg your spouse, or a company of which you are a director). You must make sure the other trustees know and take sensible steps to manage or remove the conflict.
There are different conflicts of interest depending on whether you’re running a defined benefit or defined contribution scheme.
The module ‘DB recovery plans, contributions and funding principles’ provides some further information on statements of funding principles. You must log in or sign up to use the Trustee toolkit.
It’s important to know what protection you have as a trustee against liability for claims about your actions as a trustee. Check your trust document or speak to your fellow trustees to find out.
Look out for:
These are not included in all trust deed and rules. Remember you’re only protected by these clauses or policies if you’ve acted honestly and within the terms of the protection. And you continue to be responsible for all your decisions even after you’ve stopped being a trustee.
The tutorial ‘Trustee liabilities and protection’ in the module ‘The trustee’s role’ will tell you more about the different protections that may be available to you. You must log in or sign up to use the Trustee toolkit.
