How we will support you

Once we have our new team all our new Member Nominated Directors (MND) and Trustee Talent Pool (TTP) members will take part in an interactive training session run by our Trustee Secretary, Aon, and our advisers. This includes:

• Working with you to identify how your particular attributes can help us - like enthusiasm, a willingness to learn and a desire to be part of a team, are important qualities;
• Agreeing what you would be comfortable doing;
• Bringing you up to speed on the schemes, what benefits are payable and how they are managed;
• Helping you to develop your knowledge and understanding of pensions;
• Explaining the legalities about running the schemes; and
• Outlining the schemes’ investments, how these are managed and what role the Board takes in the selection and monitoring of investment managers.

You’ll also get the opportunity to meet all our professional advisers and ask them questions. These are appointed to provide their specialist knowledge to our team to support the work we do.

Support does not end after this training session. We have a comprehensive on-going development programme to help all the members of the team keep up to date with any changes to legislation or best practice.

Help is available every step of the way

For example, one of our advisers, Aon, provides specialist one to one coaching to help you to develop at your own pace.

There’s a wealth of information made available by other organisations, including The Pensions Regulator (TPR) which is the regulatory body overseeing the pensions industry. TPR have produced an online Trustee toolkit which covers all aspects of pension scheme management. It is presented in a modular format, includes case studies and online assessments. All our current Trustee Directors (TDs) and TTP members have found completing these modules to be extremely helpful.

We do ask that anyone joining the team (be it as a MND or a member of the TTP) complete the toolkit within 6 months of joining for MNDs and 12 months for TTP members.

There’s also a professional qualification for TDs - ‘The Pensions Management Institute’s Award in Pension Trusteeship (Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit Scheme)’. We encourage all our TDs to attain this qualification and we provide support for those interested in gaining it.