Under the Pensions Act 2004 (sections 247- 249), pension scheme trustees must

(a) have knowledge and understanding of

• pensions and trust law
• investment and funding principles

(b) be conversant with documents relating to their pension scheme.

Fleshing out the detailed requirements is the job of the Regulator.

Code of Practice

The Pensions Regulator, which will replace Opra on 6 April 2005, will issue a code of practice on trustee knowledge and understanding. The draft code of practice will be published for consultation in March and will set out how trustees can comply with the legislation.

Codes of practice are not statements of the law. However they will have evidential value, meaning they will be taken into account by the regulator's determinations panel, a court or tribunal where relevant. There will be approximately 12 codes of practice. The Pensions Regulator will issue the codes on a rolling basis from April 2005. Today, Opra has published more details of the codes in Bulletin 33. This is only available online: to save money, Opra is no longer publishing printed editions.

Aries comment

In our opinion, Bulletin 33 contains a great deal of useful information and should be regarded as required reading for trustees and others.

Scope Guidance

Meanwhile, over the last six months, Opra has been working very closely with the pensions industry to establish and develop a checklist of the areas of knowledge that trustees are required to have. The draft lists, known as 'scope' documents, were first published on Opra's website in October 2004. Following industry feedback, the final revised scope documents were published on 4 February 2005.

The two scope documents are aimed at:

(A) final-salary (defined benefit) schemes and money-purchase (defined-contribution) schemes; and

(B) money-purchase (defined-contribution) schemes only.

(There is no longer a document targeted specifically at fully insured schemes.)

The scope documents complement the code and may be published as an appendix to the draft code in March.

Learning for trustees

It is intended that these documents will form the basis for a draft syllabus and qualification for trustee training to be developed by the Financial Services Skills Council and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, although it will not be mandatory for trustees to take the qualification.