Trustee Services

We provide professional trustee services for pension schemes through our trustee company, Act4You Trustees Limited.

As pensions legislation has increased in its complexity so the responsibilities facing trustees have become more onerous. Trustees must now have a thorough understanding of each of the factors which may affect the smooth running of the scheme – matters such as investment performance, benefit administration, terms of the Deed and rules, risk assessment, choice of advisers, relationship with regulators and communication with members.

There is also increasing pressure on lay trustees to be able to demonstrate that they have sufficient knowledge and competency in these, and other, areas.

That is where our expertise can prove invaluable. We can act as an independent trustee alongside the existing scheme trustees and be central to the relationship between those who are involved with the scheme: members, advisers, sponsoring company and regulators.

In many cases existing trustees, some of whom may also be company directors, face conflicts of interest which can seriously impact on decision making within the board of trustees. Our appointment can help reassure members that key decisions will be made impartially and also by utilising our accumulated knowledge gained over many years within the pensions industry.

We believe that with our actuarial background that our trustee services can be particularly valuable as part the Scheme Specific Funding role whilst acting alongside the trustees own actuarial advisers.

Insolvency work

Insolvency practitioners can also find our services helpful in connection with pension schemes they encounter as part of their appointments. In certain cases where the company operated a ‘trust based’ pension scheme we can take over the trustees’ responsibilities for the pension scheme. In this way the Insolvency Practitioner can minimise its involvement with the scheme.

We can then use our expertise to ensure that benefits are secured as part of the orderly winding-up the scheme. Part of our role will involve working closely with the Pension Protection Fund to ascertain whether the scheme is eligible for entry to the Fund.