Employment News

BT Pension Scheme Trustee Arrangements

20 February 2007

The CWU has been informed of a technical change to the Trustee arrangements for the BT Pensions Scheme (BTPS) in order to reflect the increasing responsibilities and liabilities on Trustees, and to put in place updated arrangements for the BTPS Trustees.

The BTPS Trustees have been replaced by a Corporate Trustee called BT Pension Scheme Trustees Ltd. However, the existing nine individuals who were trustees of the BTPS before the change are now directors of this company and so the day to day running of the BTPS will be the responsibility of the same individuals.

The arrangements for appointing the directors of the Trustee Company are the same as those that applied for appointing the individual trustees before the change in arrangements. Therefore, four of the Trustees will be nominated by BT, and four member nominated trustees are nominated by the BT Unions after consultation with Unite (formerly known as the National Federation of Royal Mail and BT pensioners). BT will appoint the Chair with the agreement of the BT Unions.

Using a corporate trustee is not unusual in pension schemes. For example, and both O2 and Royal Mail already have similar arrangements while the BT Retirement Plan has a corporate trustee as the Chair of the trustee body.

The CWU is satisfied that the changes in the arrangements will not materially change the way that the BT Pension Scheme is operated by the BTPS Trustees or have any detrimental impact on BTPS members.