As a contentious lawyer, I tend not to be involved in pensions issues when everything is going smoothly – my phone normally rings when trustees or employers are facing a problem of reasonable magnitude. I often wish that I had been involved at an earlier stage, at the point that the problem was (or could have been) first identified.
The long-awaited general code of practice came into force on 28 March 2024 and this provides an excellent opportunity for trustees to review their governance processes. I would encourage trustees to pay attention to the expectations of The Pensions Regulator (TPR) around the management of service providers and reconsider how they measure service standards and how they set trigger points that identify poor service. Whilst this blog focuses on pensions administration, the general messages apply to all service providers.
If trustees are receiving poor service, what should they do?
Pension scheme trustees often have long-standing relationships with the administrators who manage the day-to day scheme activity on the trustees’ behalf. It can be difficult to address unsatisfactory performance if improvements are promised by a trusted contact. Poor performance might be short term – for example due to unexpected absences of key staff. In this instance, in addition to checking the contractual documentation, trustees should increase the frequency of monitoring the service until the performance returns to satisfactory levels (for example, weekly or fortnightly catch-up calls). However, short term problems may be indicative of more serious issues (such as a high turnover of staff, under resourcing or insufficient training).
