Trustee and governance services

Our role is to make your lives easier.

Pension scheme governance has grown increasingly complex, placing greater demands on pension scheme trustees and sponsors.

We make our clients’ lives easier by taking a hands-on approach with all day-to-day governance and operational matters, so they can focus on taking the big-picture decisions that enhance member outcomes. We collaborate with all advisers and stakeholders to ensure meetings run efficiently and key projects are delivered effectively.

Our clients value the proportionate approach we take to compliance. An example is the General Code, where we have supported our clients with developing their Effective System of Governance (ESOG) and prepare for their first Own Risk Assessment (ORA). Whether you have an ESOG and are planning for your ORA, or need help determining what you need to do to comply, our pragmatic but considered approach will help you meet all your obligations.

Our trustee and governance services

We ensure our clients operate well-governed schemes that meet all governance and legislative requirements. We do this by:

• Managing all scheme meetings, including logistics, preparing agendas and minuting key decisions taken.
• Maintaining a strong governance framework supported by practical policies and procedures.
• Overseeing scheme operations and risk management functions.
• Tracking the scheme’s progress against its objectives and taking corrective action as needed.
• Ensuring trustees and sponsors receive the training and support they need to take effective decisions.

Our expertise also allows us to provide a range of consultancy and management services in addition to our core secretarial and governance offering. These include:

• Pensions management and secondments: We provide interim pensions management support for sponsors where temporary vacancies arise.
• Benefit design: We help develop the benefits a scheme provides, ranging from opening new sections to wind-ups and everything in between.
• Project management arising from business-as-usual operations, or to deliver against the scheme’s set objectives.
• Strategic consulting following changes in legislation or in response to wider scheme developments.
• Member engagement such as surgeries, roadshows and similar interactive events.
• Adviser selection and procurement service.
   

Why choose XPS?

Our trustee and governance services team consists of 40+ pension management and governance professionals based across the UK. We support over 120 clients, ensuring legislative and governance compliance while simultaneously supporting the schemes’ wider objectives.

As we are the strong, dependable link between our clients and their advisers, our priority is to build strong relationships with all parties. This allows us to collaborate more effectively and, as a result, we are able to deliver against our clients’ objectives.

There is no one size fits all. We understand each scheme is different. We work with our clients to understand their needs, challenges and objectives to provide the support they need.

Each of our clients has a named secretarial appointment who is responsible for the co-ordination of all the services required to run a pension scheme.