With Paul Myners set to announce new recommendations on the future responsibilities of pension scheme trustees, the first independently produced set of guidelines to help new and existing trustees was launched yesterday in London.

Ian McCartney, Minister of State for Work and Pensions, commended the new Code of Practice as "very helpful" in providing "an excellent overall picture of what being a trustee means, the roles trustees play, the framework within which they work, and where they can go for information and advice".

The Code has been developed by the Trustee Code of Practice Group, chaired by Brian Holden MBE of CIS. Mr Holden has a long track record in promoting good trusteeship. After founding the Pension Trustees Forum (predecessor of the PMI Trustee Group) in 1992, he wrote the Hawksmere Report "On Trust - Making Pensions Governance Work" and also chaired the Aries Trustee Training Committee which collaborated with Aries to produce the first computer-based trustee training course (TRT - still the market leader), in 1995/96.

The Code is a helpful new resource for trustee training. With more and more pressure being placed on trustees and the threat of fines or imprisonment, this concise new set of guidelines provides further support material for those people who dedicate their time in overseeing the running of their company pension scheme.

Bearing the Plain English Campaign’s 'crystal mark', the Code effectively summarises trustees’ responsibilities in the form of a set of bullet points, with each section headed "you should". It covers the following topics:

• Introduction
• Appointing trustees
• Before you begin
• Getting started
• Conflicts of interest
• Tasks involved in being a trustee
• Duties, powers and making decisions
• Confidentiality
• Trustee meetings
• Amending the scheme
• Regulation and approval
• The supervisory role of a trustee
• Delegating and supervising
• Documentation
• The sponsoring employer
• The scheme’s appointed advisers
• Administration
• Investing the money
• Relationship with members
• The scheme members
• Annual reporting
• Continuing trustee development
• Glossary