The Pensions Regulator's (TPR) latest campaign, launched today (24 November 2009), focuses on 'keeping pension safe', by encouraging good governance and administration, as well as better management of scheme risks.

As well as the campaign, the Regulator has published its fourth annual pension scheme governance survey, which found that larger schemes tend to be associated with higher levels of governance activity, although there is a general trend of a lack of understanding of the clearance process.

Tony Hobman, chief executive at TPR, said that the campaign has been designed "to build on progress made in recent years", and acknowledged that trustees perform "a critical role in protecting and managing pensions, and are faced with challenges in this difficult economic context".

Bill Galvin, executive director at TPR added to his colleagues comments by saying that good governance was more important than ever today.

"With the introduction of auto-enrolment, millions more people and over one million employers will be brought into occupational pension saving for the first time. Good governance will be critical to ensuring the safe and proper management of people's savings."

However, Paul Jayson, a partner at Barnett Waddingham, expressed concern that TPR's latest campaign could add further unnecessary pressure on scheme trustees.

"There could be unintended consequences of the increased governance requirement," he said. "For example, many lay Trustees feel increasingly out of their depth with the ever increasing requirements made of them and subsequently may step away from their appointments with a resulting loss of their talents in running schemes."

Jayson added that the Regulator could have been more specific when it came to its concerns, highlighting a lack of examples. "This would give Trustees certainty of what was expected of them, rather than the general fear factor that pervades trusteeship currently.

"In the event, Trustees are generally becoming more uncomfortable in their roles, the result being that sometimes they are reluctant to make active decisions for fear of making the wrong ones."

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