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About Us
I have over 20 years experience in the pensions industry. During this time I have carried out roles in administration, technical, training, consultancy and investment management. Click here for more information.
Over the last ten years I have seen many instances of clients who are unhappy with their consultants, actuaries or investment consultants and they have frequently asked me to recommend alternative companies to talk to and consider for appointment.
This has made me realise that there are a large number of organisations that are available to advise either trustees or companies on the various aspects of their benefit schemes. The market place is also constantly evolving with new services being offered to help trustees to carry out their duties. However, there are very few organisations that can help them to review the advisers that they have in place and where necessary, help them appoint alternative or additional professionals to help them run their arrangements more efficiently.
This has become even more relevant now that the Pensions Regulator is looking at best practice and there has been the Morris Review of the actuarial profession. It is now recommended that schemes regularly review their appointments and Local Authority schemes have to do this every three years.
In these cash straightened times, it is also important for trustees and sponsors to know that they are getting a cost effective service that the they way that the services are charged for meets their requirements. Regular reviews will help to ensure that advisers keep their fees competitive and that charges are applied fairly.
Whether you are an experienced pensions manager, involved in finance or an human resources professional you will probably feel that you have no scope for the additional work and, with reduced headcounts, no one you can pass this responsibility onto. We provide a tailor made service to allow you to control the scope, cost and timescale of your review.
The process that we have in place is designed so that we can undertake each part separately and apply it to either small specific reviews or alternatively the whole adviser structure. This will help you to control costs and ensure that the service meets your exact requirements.
Areas to Consider
- Trustee Board Composition - including sub-committees
- Independent Trustees
- Benefit Consultants
- Actuarial Consultants
- Investment Consultants - strategic or manager review
- Fiduciary Management
- Communications Consultants
- Administration or Software Providers
- Accountants
- Employer Covenant Assessment
- Pensions Manager Services
- One off projects
- Service Monitoring
My View
The role of Investment consultants can broadly be split into to areas - investment strategy and manager selection. In general manager selection naturally follows on from the strategy that is set by the trustees.
With detailed analysis of recommendations and subsequent monitoring of the strategy Trustees will a better chance of being sold unnecessarily complex and expensive investment solutions.