The Pensions Regulator (TPR) should adopt a more ambitious, inclusive, and member-centred approach to its Corporate Strategy, according to the Association of Member Nominated Trustees (AMNT).

Responding to the regulator’s consultation on its five-year strategy, the association welcomed TPR’s shift from using the term ‘savers’ to ‘members’ and the overarching vision of helping people achieve a sustainable income in retirement beyond just accumulation.

It also praised TPR’s intention to modernise data and digital capability, and recent guidance supporting trustees in navigating new choices.

However, it called for the regulator’s approach to explicitly protect the role of member representation, guard against the risks of consolidation, and keep fiduciary duty at the centre of all regulatory activity.

The AMNT highlighted several other areas that it felt needed to be addressed, including inequality and the gender pensions gap, more ambitious targets for retirement income, decumulation and collective defined contribution (CDC), and artificial intelligence governance.

The association said the consultation conflated fiduciary duty with UK growth objectives in places, omitted CDC from its discussion of future defined benefit/DC challenges, and did not acknowledge the role of investment consultants and managers in supporting trustee decision making.

“The challenges identified within the strategy will require ongoing collaboration between regulators, trustees, employers, advisers and industry bodies,” commented AMNT vice chair, Lewis Brown.

“AMNT believes that constructive engagement between TPR and representative organisations can play an important role in improving standards of trusteeship, supporting member representation and promoting good governance across the pensions sector.”

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