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If you’re a company director chances are you have a pension plan in place, you may be part of a group arrangement for all company employees, or you may have your own individual pension plan commonly referred to as an executive or directors pension.
Either way when the pension was set up a trustee was put in place for the purposes of safe guarding the activity of your pension. For individual arrangements the Employer themselves normally act as trustee, for group pension schemes a nominated company director or directors are usually selected along side a pensioner trustee. However companies themselves can be trustees, as can nominated employees and indeed Corporate Trustees can be appointed.
Group scheme trustees would tend to monitor the scheme at annual review meetings, while individual pension scheme holders and trustees would tend to review their own pension plan with their broker once a year. However up until recently, no specific formal training was required for trustees.
But this is all about to change due a recent change in The Pensions Act to include a requirement for pension scheme trustees to undertake training at regular intervals.
From 1st February 2010, new trustees are legally required to undertake training within six months of being appointed, while existing trustees must be trained within two years.
All trustees will then be required to undertake training every two years thereafter.
Anyone trustee who does not receive training could be subject to an on-the-spot fine of €2,000. Employers who breach the new rules to provide training for pension trustees may be prosecuted in the district court and jailed, fined €5,000, or both. Training is a requirement for trustees of both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.
The Trustee Training requirement can be met by completing either an approved Trustee Training course or the Pensions Board’s online course.
Either way when the pension was set up a trustee was put in place for the purposes of safe guarding the activity of your pension. For individual arrangements the Employer themselves normally act as trustee, for group pension schemes a nominated company director or directors are usually selected along side a pensioner trustee. However companies themselves can be trustees, as can nominated employees and indeed Corporate Trustees can be appointed.
Group scheme trustees would tend to monitor the scheme at annual review meetings, while individual pension scheme holders and trustees would tend to review their own pension plan with their broker once a year. However up until recently, no specific formal training was required for trustees.
But this is all about to change due a recent change in The Pensions Act to include a requirement for pension scheme trustees to undertake training at regular intervals.
From 1st February 2010, new trustees are legally required to undertake training within six months of being appointed, while existing trustees must be trained within two years.
All trustees will then be required to undertake training every two years thereafter.
Anyone trustee who does not receive training could be subject to an on-the-spot fine of €2,000. Employers who breach the new rules to provide training for pension trustees may be prosecuted in the district court and jailed, fined €5,000, or both. Training is a requirement for trustees of both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.
The Trustee Training requirement can be met by completing either an approved Trustee Training course or the Pensions Board’s online course.