Trustee Knowledge Update – August 2020

United KingdomScotland

Trustees of occupational pension schemes have a statutory duty to ensure that they have an adequate knowledge and understanding of the legal issues relevant to their scheme. They must also ensure that they are up to date with relevant changes in the law, which given the volume of pensions legislation and regulation and other demands on their time, can be difficult.

With this in mind, our regular trustee knowledge update (“TKU”) is aimed specifically at pension scheme trustees, letting them know what has changed in the last quarter and how it might be relevant to them. It highlights key issues without getting bogged down in the detail.

The latest edition of TKU can be read here.

In addition, should the level of trustees’ knowledge and understanding of legal issues ever be challenged, it is useful for trustees to be able to show what steps they have taken to keep themselves informed of developments. One way of doing this would be to attach TKU to the agenda for quarterly trustees’ meetings and then minute any issues which it covers which are relevant to the scheme and how it is intended to deal with them.

If you are a new trustee and are seeking a basic introduction to pensions and trust law rather than just keeping up to date, you may be interested in our trustee training course. Please speak to your usual CMS contact for details.