EC Meeting July 2017

Ref: IFW/GFTU/17/001

19 July 2017

GFTU Executive Committee

GFTU Pension Scheme: trustees

Introduction

The trust deed by which the pension scheme is constituted requires there to be six trustees, three of whom are nominated by the members, one of whom is nominated by the Executive, one of whom is the General Secretary ex officio and the last of whom is the Chair of the GFTU ex officio.

The Scheme has five active (contributing) members. Only one of them is a GFTU employee, and he is the General Secretary. The other four are PCS employees.

It has 21 pensioner members who are former GFTU employees, two pensioner members who are former PCS (AMO) employees, 15 deferred members who are former GFTU employees and five deferred members who are former PCS (AMO) employees. There is also a small number of pensioner and deferred pensioner members who were employed by former GFTU affiliates. The composition of the trustee board needs to be reconsidered. The General Secretary is a trustee ex officio, and is also a member-nominated trustee as the only active GFTU Section member. The method used to secure nominations for, and the selection of member-nominated trustees is in the hands of the trustees (it must be, by law). The trustees have had difficulty implementing the current arrangements, and the Executive might be able to assist with that. There are approximately 16 other GFTU employees who are not members of the Scheme. They have been enrolled in a defined contribution master trust instead. Their potential membership of the Scheme and representation amongst the trustees is the subject of a second paper.

Employer-nominated trustees

The trustees think it is important that the active members of the Scheme predominate when the member-nominated trustees are selected. Unless the PCS Section is to outweigh the GFTU Section, that dictates that the General Secretary should be a member-nominated trustee as the only active GFTU Section member. That means that he is a trustee twice-over.

1