Almost 9 in 10 employers expect to struggle to find individuals prepared to become trustees with the growing regulatory burden leading to more employers turning to professional trustee options, according to new research.
According to the ACA’s 2021 pension trends survey, three-quarters of employers expect trustees to consider resigning due to regulatory and legislative changes. The regulatory burden has increased governance costs by more than 5 per cent in the last year alone, it said.
The survey found that although industry support for DB consolidation remains strong, it is being harmed by slow political decision making. The opposite is true for DC schemes, where half of the schemes are not exploring consolidation options, despite regulatory pressures to do so.
Additionally preparation for pension dashboards is progressing, but the ACA said this was at an alarmingly slow pace given their scheduled launch in 2023. Only half of the schemes have begun the process of cleaning up their data in preparation for dashboards. Half of those polled believe that the first dashboards should only display basic information.
The key findings of this preliminary report found that 76 per cent of employers expect more trustees to consider resigning due to the magnitude of new regulatory responsibilities they are expected to take on, while 88 per cent predict that more schemes will struggle to find individuals willing to serve as trustees. As a result a total of 19 per cent of schemes are considering sole trusteeship to simplify governance, with 7 per cent making this decision in the last two years.
Over half (57 per cent) expect governance costs to rise by more than 5 per cent per year. Only 51 per cent of scheme trustees/governing bodies report that they have taken steps to clean up pensions data in preparation for pension dashboards. The same narrow majority of support dashboards are being launched with only basic information.
58 per cent say the delay in moving legislation and regulation to allow consolidation of defined benefit (DB) arrangements is impeding decision-making, with support for the concept falling by a fifth in the last year. Those who are ‘undecided’ have increased to more than a third, with more than 69 per cent concerned about potential reputational risks.
While more than a third of employers have already adopted a DC master trust or made DC consolidation decisions, more than half (53 per cent) have not explored DC consolidation and are unlikely to do so.
ACA chair Patrick Bloomfield says: “The pensions industry is creaking under the weight of too much legislative change being pushed through at the same time. A wide-scale capacity crunch is already happening and set to get worse as Dashboards, GMP equalisation, simple statements, scam prevention and climate change are all competing for space, alongside fundamental changes to DB funding regulation and DC value for money.
“The pace of change in pensions is pushing up costs and discouraging people from being trustees. Unless steps are taken to manage the pressures being put on schemes, we risk killing off the UK’s traditional model of trusteeship. This would all but remove the member representation in trustee boards, which was seen as such as positive step forwards 25 years ago, following the Maxwell scandal.
“Brexit and Covid-19 have caused understandable delays in getting many pension policy issues over the line. We desperately need the government to focus on getting longstanding matters completed and implemented before adding more things to the pensions to-do list.”
