If
you are the owner of / the advisor to an ITC SSAS, do you remember to hold your
annual trustee meeting?
A
trustee meeting provides an excellent opportunity for the trustees to meet with
the scheme financial advisor and the administrator to do a review of the
scheme. Issues that are typically discussed are investment strategy and performance,
scheme governance, trustee training etc. - but it’s an open forum!
The
owner of an ITC SSAS is also a trustee of the SSAS, ITC being the other
trustee. This is one of the key features of the ITC SSAS. The Pensions Board’s
Trustee Manual, which sets down rules of conduct for trustees of occupational
pension schemes, prescribes that trustees should meet at least once every year.
It is most appropriately done just after the issue of the annual scheme
accounts.
In
ITC, we issue an invitation to a trustee meeting and the meeting agenda with
every set of annual accounts. The accounts and the invitation are forwarded to
the member trustee and, if we have been requested to do so, to the financial
advisor. It is then up to the trustees and the financial advisor to agree the
timing of the trustee meeting – but it must be held.
The
meeting can be done over the phone or by meeting in the ITC offices. At the end
of the meeting, the trustees observe their duty to sign the annual accounts.
Minutes of the Meeting are agreed.
On
occasion, issues of a legal or technical character arise. The trustee meeting
is the perfect opportunity for agreeing how to solve them.
Make sure that you hold a trustee meeting at least once a
year. It’s a great opportunity – it’s
your duty!
