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Ref: IFW/GFTU/17/001
GFTU Executive Committee
19 July 2017
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.