Commentary on Sections Part 3 – General Changes to Legislation about Pension Schemes Section 44: Removal of requirement to maintain a register of independent trustees
This section removes the statutory requirement for regulations to provide that the Pensions Regulator compile and maintain a register of trustees (the relevant regulations are the Occupational Pension Schemes (Independent Trustee) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 (S.R. 2005 No. 169)).
Article 23 of the 1995 Order allows the Pensions Regulator to appoint an independent trustee to a scheme whose employer has suffered an insolvency event.  The Regulator can only appoint a trustee from the trustee register, which it must establish and maintain.  But the Regulator has another, general power (under Article 7 of the 1995 Order) to appoint trustees to replace a person found not to be “fit and proper” to be a trustee.  In relation to this there is no requirement to appoint from a register of trustees.  This section removes the requirement to maintain a register of trustees under Article 23, in order that the Regulator can instead follow the same procedure as when appointing trustees under Article 7.