Scheme Secretary Best Practices: Insights from LawDeb's Dublin Lunch

The LawDeb Pensions team hosted its inaugural lunch for in-house scheme secretaries in Dublin recently.  It is clear that the role of the scheme secretary has become even more central to the effective running of pension schemes, given the increased expectations on trustee boards.  The group discussed recent developments and emerging practice and were joined by Andy Peek from our Pensions Governance team to give a perspective from the UK market.

Some of the key points that emerged were:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was, as to be expected, a recurring theme throughout the discussions. Its use is emerging in various ways in pension schemes, but it is still not yet widely used for minutes. Despite legal and governance concerns, the group settled on the expectation that AI will be used for minute taking in the not-too distant future. 

Coincidentally, during the lunch the group heard that the UK Pensions Regulator had published its AI plan, setting out initial expectations of how trustees should govern the use of AI. Though no such similar guidance exists in Ireland yet, we expect similar considerations would be sensible. 

The group also discussed how the role of the Scheme Secretary can be wide-ranging, but the quarterly trustee meeting provided the framework for the discussions. The group discussed their best practices for ensuring successful meetings:

Before the meeting

• Some secretaries prepare a clear list of the decisions to be taken at the trustee meeting, to ensure key decisions are progressed.
• Scheme secretaries may find it helpful to prepare 1-2 page briefs for each paper to aid trustee preparation. These could be prepared by the secretary or service provider.
• The scheme secretary has tight turnaround times for issuing papers and it is important that advisers get the papers to the scheme secretary on time, particularly where there are interdependencies (for example, where the risk manager requires the administration report to prepare the risk indicators for the scheme meeting or the secretary has to prepare the briefing notes).
• Timelines for secretaries receiving papers should allow time for them to collate and issue.

During the meeting

• Chairs could assist by using a real-time summary, i.e. by recapping decisions, rationale (where appropriate) and next steps, avoiding ambiguity in recording outcomes and decisions.

After the meeting

• Expect it to take time to write the minutes.  It may require up to eight hours to produce the minutes for a four-hour meeting, depending on the complexity of the content discussed.
• Practice is still emerging as to how concise scheme minutes should be.
• Expectations as to how long it takes to produce draft minutes, or action logs is reducing. Historically, minutes may have been circulated shortly before the following meeting. However, some schemes expect draft minutes or action logs very shortly after the meeting. Action logs may be be circulated before the minutes to help those with actions to progress them quickly.
• Consider circulating draft minutes to advisers/service providers first, to ensure their sections are accurately captured, then the Chair.
• Consider keeping two logs: a decision log with key trustee decisions (often related to member requests or discretions) and an action log including actions from trustee meetings and agreed actions from other sources or reports such as the Own Risk Assessment or internal audits.
• It may be appropriate to capture only agreed actions from reports rather than all potential recommendations or findings. 

In conclusion, the role of the scheme secretary is pivotal to the efficient and effective running of scheme meetings and the operation of pension schemes more generally.  To assist the scheme secretary in their important role it would be helpful for meeting paper deadlines to be adhered to.  In addition, at meetings, Chairs could usefully provide a real-time summary, i.e. by recapping decisions, rationale (where appropriate) and next steps.  

To find out more about LawDeb’s Irish Pension offering, please contact paul.torsney@lawdeb.com.