Anne-Marie Winton comments in Actuarial Post on the joint inquiry into Carillion’s collapse
On 30th January, the joint Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and Work and Pensions Committee heard evidence from two of the Carillion pension scheme trustees, one of whom was only very recently appointed. They explained the difficult position faced by trustees who are generally powerless to force a company to pay money into a pension scheme – unlike The Pensions Regulator.
Anne-Marie Winton commented:
“Heavy reliance is placed on having a co-operative working relationship between company and trustees, and information flows seem to have been lacking in this case. The trustees appeared to have to rely on public domain information to assess Carillion’s ability to pay. A suggestion was made that the Government ought to have been sufficiently informed about the inability of the company to fund its pension scheme and prevent further contacts from being awarded.
“The most recently appointed trustee said that the scheme’s ongoing funding level is in the public domain, hence already available to Government, but this simply isn’t correct. Whilst a scheme’s members are updated annually in regards to the funding position by the trustees, this is a private document that, unless leaked to the press or online, is not publicly available.”
Read Anne-Marie’s comments in Actuarial Post
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