Your trustee board doesn’t have the experience or knowledge

The client

A FTSE 250 global manufacturing company with over 10,000 employees, of which 2,800 are based in the UK

The problem

Trustee Knowledge & Understanding

The Trustee board was concerned that with a number of new faces in the last twelve months, the forthcoming valuation and subsequent work including a review of the employers covenant and scheme investment strategy would bring new challenges which would have to be overcome.

The solution

Following discussions with the Chair, it was agreed that each individual trustee would be asked to complete a training matrix which would identify training completed and areas where more help was needed. CBC created the matrix, held one to one meetings with each trustee and from this reported the findings to the Chair. The report showed the areas where the individual trustees felt confident in their ability “the Got”, and where they felt they had weaknesses which needed to be addressed “the Gap”. From this we created “the Get” and developed a plan for the trustee board based on the Just in Time principle to receive the relevant training about the relevant topic at the relevant time.

The outcome

The result was that eighteen months later, the trustee board had successfully overseen the scheme valuation process, reviewed the employers covenant and agreed the changes to the scheme investment strategy. Without an effective training program in place for the trustees this simply would not have happened in this timescale, the implications of which would have included reports to the Pensions Regulator and a strained relationship with the scheme sponsor.

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