The Pensions Regulator

Employer engagement

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Appendix A

Management committees

An increasingly common form of employer engagement is a management committee. 'Management committee' is a generic term used to cover a diverse group.

Management committees tend to have the following characteristics:

• They have a monitoring and advisory role but no executive function, ie no powers (although, where the committee includes members of the employer's senior management, any of its decisions is likely to be agreed by the employer as the same people will be making the decisions).
• They tend to be informal - many do not have formal terms of reference.
• They are established by the employer.
• They may or may not have member involvement.  (Some employers seek in their management committee to have a level of member representation similar to the one-third requirement under trust-based schemes).
• They are voluntary as there is no requirement to have one in place.
• Trust law does not normally apply to them.
• Their activities will depend on the terms of reference of the committee - for example, it may have reference to interests of both employer and employees.
• They generally only focus on active members still employed by the employer (as once a member leaves employment the contract becomes an individual personal pension with no employer involvement).

Management committees offer a range of potential benefits in addition to the general benefits of employer engagement:

• the committee provides a structure for employer engagement;
• terms of reference can clarify the remit of the committee;
• the existence of a committee sends a positive signal to the employees; and
• members know with whom to raise pensions queries.

A management committee may appear under a number of different names such as:

governance committee/group; consultative committee; stewardship committee; monitoring committee; staff forum; pensions committee; pensions forum; pensions monitoring committee; pensions steering committee.

The membership of the committee is the choice of the employer. Examples of members include:

chief executive officer; HR director; finance director; managing director; members; union representatives; trustees of any occupational scheme also offered by the employer. The adviser and/or provider may be asked to attend meetings to provide reports or they may actually be a member of the group.   

Meetings of the management committee need not take a lot of time. They may range from one meeting for a short duration each year to more frequent meetings depending on the committee's remit.

In terms of the committee communicating to employees, a low or high visibility role may be appropriate depending on the committee's role and remit.

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