Independent trustees meaning

In this issue Employment taxes Budgets and Finance Bills VAT International Taxes management and litigation Companies and corporation tax Anti-avoidance Devolution Pensions LexTalk®Tax: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Latest Q&A Useful information Employment taxes Royal Assent for National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Act 2025 The National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill—bringing in an uplift to 15% for the main rate of employers’ secondary Class 1 National Insurance contributions from 13.8%, and cutting the secondary threshold to £5,000 per annum—was first set out at Autumn Budget 2024 and obtained Royal Assent on 3 April 2025. The provisions apply from 6 April 2025. See: National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Act 2025. HMRC publishes Employment Related Securities Bulletin 59 (March 2025) Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES)—policy...

In this issue: The Pensions Regulator The Pensions Ombudsman Disputes and litigation New content Daily and weekly news alerts Dates for your diary Trackers The Pensions Regulator DWP announces appointment of Kirstin Baker as interim chair of TPR The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed the appointment of Kirstin Baker as interim chair of the Pensions Regulator (TPR) from 1 August 2025, for a period of up to nine months. Baker, who is currently TPR’s Senior Independent Board Member, will replace Sarah Smart, whose tenure as chair has concluded, while the competition for the next full-term chair takes place. The interim chair brings substantial experience from prior roles at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and HM Treasury, where she received a CBE for work during the banking crisis. In this interim capacity, the chair will receive annual remuneration of £73,840, aligned to a minimum time commitment of 104 days. For further information, see:...

Original news Mr R (CAS-45657-B7R7)—30 July 2025 Summary The Deputy Pensions Ombudsman partially upheld a complaint regarding the division of scheme assets and maladministration within a small self-administered pension scheme. As unanimity was required, yet the resolution permitting the division lacked signatures from all trustees, the split was invalid. There were also several administrative shortcomings by the scheme’s independent trustee and, consequently, the independent trustee was required to refund its fees. The complainant received £2,000 for the severe distress and inconvenience arising from the SSAS’s maladministration. The decision serves as a reminder that, where unanimity is mandated, every trustee must be engaged in any determination. What were the facts? Mr R was a member of the Selven Pension Scheme (the Scheme). The Scheme was a small self-administered scheme (SSAS), with James Hay Partnership (JHP) acting as the independent trustee and administrator. Westbridge Pensions Administration Ltd (Westbridge) replaced JHP in 2021. The Scheme required unanimous trustee decisions. Mr R was a trustee member alongside his fellow trustee...

THIS PRACTICE NOTE APPLIES TO TRUST-BASED OCCUPATIONAL PENSION SCHEMES Occupational pension scheme trustees are generally either individual trustees or corporate trustees. A corporate trustee is typically a private limited company governed by the Companies Act 2006 (CA 2006). Corporate trustees are often installed in one of two ways: in place of a board of individual trustees for a particular scheme. A trustee company is formed to act solely as the single trustee of that scheme, and the company’s directors effectively step into the role otherwise fulfilled by the board of individual trustees. Those directors are commonly called trustees, although, strictly, they are directors and are more accurately described as ‘trustee directors’. An independent professional trustee company can be appointed as a trustee director to a trustee company of this type independent professional trustees are usually established as limited companies. They may be appointed alongside other individual trustees or as sole trustees. The person who carries out the corporate trustee’s day-to-day functions may, or may not,...

In this Practice Note, the expressions ‘defined benefit’ or ‘DB benefits’ denote safeguarded benefits for the purposes of section 48 of the Pension Schemes Act 2015 (PSA 2015). Likewise, ‘defined contribution benefit’ or ‘DC benefit’ is used for flexible benefits under PSA 2015, s 74. For further detail on safeguarded and flexible benefits, see Practice Note: Flexible benefits vs safeguarded benefits. Relevant trustee considerations When handling DB to DC transfer requests (or DB to DC conversion requests), trustees of DB occupational pension schemes should take account of the following: Compliance with the cash equivalent transfer value regime Trustees must adhere to the statutory rules of the cash equivalent transfer value (CETV) regime. Those requirements are found in: sections 93–101 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 (PSA 1993), which set out the eligibility conditions and the steps to follow the Occupational Pension Schemes (Transfer Values) Regulations 1996, SI 1996/1847 (the Transfer Regulations), which prescribe how a member’s cash equivalent is to be calculated...

A charity is a corporate or unincorporated body whose objects are, in law, exclusively charitable. Those objects must be legally enforceable, and a charity has no power to undertake anything that does not advance, or help to advance, a charitable purpose. Charitable purposes The Charities Act 2011 (CA 2011) provides a catalogue of purposes regarded as charitable when aimed at benefiting the public rather than particular individuals or private groups. The catalogue is not exhaustive. It includes a sweeping clause embracing purposes already recognised as charitable, though not itemised, together with purposes of a similar nature. Public benefit is crucial, but on its own it does not secure charitable status. It has recently been determined that, to satisfy the public benefit test, the purposes of an independent school require that the educational advantages extend not only to those who can pay the fees but also, in a manner selected by the trustees, to those otherwise eligible for benefit who cannot afford them. Thus, fee-charging education must be complemented...

This Q&A proceeded on the basis that the life tenant neither arranged for an independent person to read the document to him nor obtained separate legal advice about it...