Member-nominated and sole trustee numbers
FOI reference - FOI-443
Date - 17 February 2026
Request
TPR previously published data on member nominated and sole trustee numbers in a reply to a Freedom of Information request: FOI-124.
Would it be possible to update this reply with data from any more recent years that have become available since then?
Also, does TPR hold data on the number of sole trustees who notified them of their resignation due to either being unable to manage a conflict of interest or being unable to manage pressure from an employer?
If so, can high-level, summary statistics about these be provided for the 3 latest years available?
Response
I can confirm we hold some of the information you have requested.
Information that we are able to supply
Below we have provided the number of the member-nominated and professional corporate sole trustees.
| Year | Total number of member-nominated trustees for DB/hybrid schemes | Total number of professional corporate sole trustees for DB/hybrid schemes |
|---|---|---|
| 2013* | 6,370 | Not available |
| 2018 | 4,670 | 840 |
| 2023 | 3,370 | 1,150 |
| 2024 | 3,130 | 1,220 |
| 2025 | 2,880 | 1,310 |
* Please be aware that the questions on professional corporate sole trustees asked in our scheme return changed between 2013 and 2018. We have therefore not updated the data for 2013.
You should note the following when interpreting this information:
- All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10. This may mean that the number of schemes may not be an exact count.
- This source information is provided directly by pension schemes in response to the mandatory annual scheme return. Data is not weighted or imputed to account for non-response to the survey.
- Schemes included are either defined benefit and hybrid (dual section and mixed benefit) private occupational schemes. Schemes which are gone-away, not registrable, wound-up and schemes with less than two members have been excluded.
- The information disclosed reflects the data held for all DB and hybrid schemes on 1 April for the years 2013, 2018, 2023, 2024 and 2025. This is different to the methodology used to compile the data for FOI-124, in which we provided information only for schemes that had submitted a scheme return for that year. As such, the data within the two responses is not directly comparable.
- The data is collected at a scheme level, therefore if a trustee is affiliated to more than one scheme, they will be counted multiple times in our response.
- Please note that while compiling the information required for this response, we identified an error in the figures provided for the year 2023 in FOI-124. The correct figures for that year have been provided above and a note was added to FOI-124 directing to these figures.
Information that we are not able to supply
We do not hold the information requested in the second paragraph of your request, regarding the number of sole trustees who resigned for the reasons set out in your request above.