Sackers participates in the development of a new DC Chair’s Statement template

Sackers is delighted to have contributed to the development of a new template for the DC Chair’s Statement for pension scheme trustees.

Produced by the DC Governance Group, the template provides a solution to a problem that has plagued the pensions industry for several years. The template, which has been published today, aims to reduce the time it takes to produce Chair’s Statements and to reduce costs. It has been drafted by leading pensions lawyers and consultants, with contributions from the founding members of the DC Governance Group including:

Helen Ball, Sackers
Mark Baker, Pinsent Masons
Francois Barker, Eversheds Sutherland
Anna Copestake, ARC Pensions Law
Charlotte Feld, Travers Smith
Laura Myers, LCP
Rona Train, Hymans Robertson

The template is being hosted by the PLSA. The PLSA is encouraging trustees and providers to use the template as a starting point for producing their own scheme-specific version.

David Fairs, Executive Director of Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice at The Pensions Regulator, says “A chair’s statement is a basic requirement of good pensions governance and should be written clearly enough for members to understand and so I welcome any assistance provided to the trustees such as the PLSA’s drafting template. The template doesn’t remove the need for trustees to carry out the fundamental analysis forming the foundation for a chair’s statement or consider how the statement requirements apply in the case of their scheme, but it should help in collating the information needed and help to present this clearly to savers.”

Helen Ball, a founding member of the DC Governance Group and head of DC at Sackers says: “This template will hopefully provide a useful starting point for any trustees who are uncertain of how they should meet the governance requirements, and should help to reduce the production time and costs associated with their statements. It is not intended to replace the good work done by many schemes over the past few years in forming their own chair’s statement “style”, but this will be a really useful tool to supplement and support it.”

Laura Myers, Chair of the PLSA’s DC Committee, said: “The idea behind producing a chair’s statement is to demonstrate good governance to members. However, in reality the production of these templates has ballooned out of control due to the concerns caused in part by a mandatory penalty regime with its accompanying naming and shaming, causing nervousness in the industry. This has led to more focus on producing a statement than good governance itself”.