Inside Pensions

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Inside Pensions's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Inside Pensions is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

www.insidepensions.com

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

22 | INSIDE PENSIONS

Celebrating as a team

ounded in 2008, Inside Pensions has grown from a boutique

business to the largest independent pensions executive support

provider in the UK. Based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, their core

philosophy has always put the clients’ needs, and those of their

team, at the centre of everything they do. Directors Ryan Powell and

Rachael Fortescue explain that Inside Pensions works closely with

over 50 UK pension schemes to ensure they have the highest level of

governance achievable and deliver the best value for their members.

Our growth has been organic, increasing the range of our offerings so we deliver

an impressive combination of services to our existing UK pension trustee clients

while adding new appointments year on year. We have never lost a client to a

competitor, and through our holistic approach to service provision, the scope of our

original mandates has been considerably expanded. We continually strive to build

best practice until it becomes routine. Martin Carroll, Co-Chair of the First UK Bus

Pension Scheme, said “We have made many decisions in the last five years but the

best decision by far was appointing Inside Pensions to provide secretariat support.”

Our success

Our approach recognises our strengths as a business, as a team and as individuals. We

strongly believe that to succeed in a fiercely competitive industry, Inside Pensions needs

to continue to embrace diversity and flexibility while allowing our team to be both

empowered and trusted. We deliberately ensure that our team is diverse in a number of

ways, by age, by gender, by strengths and also by background. This means that we have

a wide pool of differing talents that we can call upon to meet our clients’ needs. Our

tailored client teams ensure a cost-effective solution, delivering real value for money.

We succeed as a team so it is really important that we also celebrate our successes

as a team. For our most recent celebration, we took a table at Ascot and ran a

draw in the office to select those who would attend. We’re just deciding where to

take the next group of winners.

Flexibility

We are not only flexible in how we work with our clients, but also with our team.

Our role is very varied, attending trustee meetings, dealing with a wide range of

advisers and suppliers, ensuring best practice governance is implemented by our UK

pension scheme clients. Precision is key.

Allowing our team to work according to both our clients’ needs and their individual

schedules means that traditional offices hours rarely coincide. Working from home,

from client sites and in-office hot-desking allows our staff to achieve impressive

results while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

AT A GLANCE

INSIDE PENSIONS

»Directors: Ryan Powell and

Rachael Fortescue

»Founded in 2008

»Based in St Albans,

Hertfordshire

»Services: Trustee executive

services

»No. of employees: 30

»Our UK pension schemes’

clients control over £100

billion of assets

»www.insidepensions.com

Inside Pensions

Director Ryan Powell

23INSIDE PENSIONS |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2019

»OUR SERVICES

»Core pensions executive

support

»Strategic and risk reviews

»Co-ordinating liability

management solutions

»Pensions manager support

Ad hoc

trustee training

»Pensions communications

»Third party adviser reviews

Our flexibility has enabled us to recruit,

nurture and retain the very best talent

available. Each member of the team

has taken the Gallup Strengthsfinder

assessment to identify their core

strengths. We then discuss these in our

one-to-ones and wider team meetings

to make the best use of the strengths

we have.

We encourage ideas and suggestions

for continued improvement from all

our staff, regardless of their role or

experience. As a team, we actively seek

feedback from our clients; this allows

us to build strong, effective teams with

a great fit and to deliver consistent

value, reducing our clients’ ever-

growing regulatory burden.

Flexibility case study – Judith

Codling, senior scheme

secretary

With over 20 years in the pensions

industry, I joined Inside Pensions

in 2016. As a single mum with a

football-mad 15-year-old, I needed a

role which allowed me to juggle my

home commitments with those at

work. In just over two years with Inside

Pensions, I have been promoted to

the role of a senior scheme secretary

and am now a member of the

management team.

In a break from pensions, I had

qualified as a school teacher and

wanted to give back to the education

system. The flexibility that Inside

Pensions has given me, both in

terms of working remotely and with

organising my hours to suit me and

my clients, has enabled me to become

a parent-governor at my son’s school

and a child welfare officer at his

football club.

Embracing the digital age

We are passionate about process

and order and are committed to

providing services that exceed our

clients’ requirements. Our values of

integrity, clarity and simplicity apply

to everything we do. Our tailored

in-house systems, designed through

our wealth of experience, help our

UK pension scheme clients to run

efficiently and effectively. In short,

we provide our clients with the clarity

they need to ensure great governance

beyond just simple compliance.

Our office is largely paperless.

We encourage all our boards and

committees to have soft copy meeting

packs and educate our more mature

trustees around accessing information

digitally. Our bespoke trustee libraries

embrace technology, allowing trustees

to securely access all their essential

scheme documents in one place

and track their running costs on a

quarterlybasis.

The future

Being flexible and nimble has allowed

us to continually evolve to meet the

growing demand for outsourced

services. To expand the range of

services we provide in 2019 and

beyond, we continue to recruit

seasoned, high-quality team players to

complement our existing experienced

talent and help a new generation of

pension schemes thrive and flourish.

As the pensions world switches from

the paternalism of defined benefit

schemes to the individualism of

defined contribution, our dedication to

strong governance support continues

to help our expanding client base to

face their challenges. In summary,

trustees need an experienced pair of

hands to help them map the future

and ensure the best possible outcomes

for their members. Our oversight of

the changing pensions landscape,

gained by our continued work on

over 50 schemes, puts us in a strong

position to compete and guide, with a

consistency of service second tonone.

Director Rachael Fortescue

We have made

many decisions in

the last five years

but the best

decision by far

was appointing

Inside Pensions

to provide

secretariat

support

“

www.insidepensions.com

This article was sponsored by Inside Pensions. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng

This year’s Parliamentary Review reflects on a tumultuous and extraordinary year, globally and nationally. As well as being an MP, I am a keen student of history, and I am conscious that 2020 would mark the end of an era. It will be remembered as the year in which we concluded Brexit negotiations and finally left the European Union. Above all, it will be remembered as the year of Covid-19.

In our fight against the pandemic, I am delighted that our vaccination programme is beginning to turn the tide – and I pay tribute to the British businesses, scientists and all those who have helped us to achieve this. But the virus has dealt enormous damage, and we now have a duty to rebuild our economy.

We must ensure that businesses are protected. We have made more than £350 billion available to that end, with grants, business rates relief and our furlough scheme supporting more than 11 million people and jobs in every corner of the country, maintaining livelihoods while easing the pressure on employers. The next step is to work with business to build back better and greener, putting the net zero carbon challenge at the heart of our recovery. This is a complex undertaking, but one which I hope will be recognised as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Through the prime minister’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, we can level up every region of the UK, supporting 250,000 green jobs while we accelerate our progress towards net zero carbon emissions.

With our commitment to raise R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP and the creation of the Advanced Research & Invention Agency, we are empowering our fantastic researchers to take on groundbreaking research, delivering funding with flexibility and speed. With this approach, innovators will be able to work with our traditional industrial heartlands to explore new technologies, and design and manufacture the products on which the future will be built – ready for export around the globe.

And I believe trade will flourish. We are a leading nation in the fight against climate change. As the host of COP26 this year, we have an incredible opportunity to market our low-carbon products and expertise. Our departure from the EU gives us the chance to be a champion of truly global free trade; we have already signed trade deals with more than 60 countries around the world.

As we turn the page and leave 2020 behind, I am excited about the new chapter which Britain is now writing for itself, and for the opportunities which lie ahead of us.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy