Technical and Trustee Services Executive

Job Title: Technical and Trustee Services Executive

Location: Kingston Head Office'

JOB PURPOSE

UNILEVER UK & Ireland PENSIONS (UUKP)

UUKP is a friendly team that believes in supporting and helping each other and that values getting things right.  UUKP is responsible for providing expert pension services for Unilever’s UK pension arrangements and some of the Irish pension arrangements which includes:

• A large hybrid UK registered pension scheme with four sections.  There are around 72,000 members in the main sections and the value of assets is approximated £710.5bn.  One section of the scheme provides executive benefits to around 160 members.  The Trustee of this pension scheme is a trustee company with 11 directors.
• A small section 615 scheme (for overseas service) with assets of around £155 million and around 715 members.  The Trustees of this pension scheme are a trustee company with 3 directors and The Law Debenture Pension Trust Corporation plc.
• A closed defined benefit (final salary) Irish arrangement, circa €300m assets
• A number of UK and Irish company unfunded arrangements, circa £200m liabilities

The Pensions Technical and Trustee Services team:

• assists the Head of Trustee Services in managing external advisers to the Trustees and providing specialist pension services to the Trustees and, on certain matters, the Company in the areas of governance, compliance, communications, legislation, regulation, funding and policy. 
• is responsible for providing technical pensions expertise to the Trustees, Company and outsourced Third Party Administrators and the in-house Expert Administration Team.  This includes working with actuarial and legal advisers in investigating technical pensions matters, proposing solutions, getting approvals and providing instructions on implementing changes.

Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life with the work that you do – creating a better business and a better world.  If you are someone that likes to do the right thing and do it well then this role is just for you!

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Manage/ provide assistance on projects in the areas of governance, policy and benefit administration (of a largely technical or trustee governance nature).
• Assist in researching technical queries raised by internal and external stakeholders, identifying and gathering all relevant information, liaising with external advisers where appropriate and drafting briefing papers/summaries (with recommendations where appropriate).
• Assist in ensuring schemes are compliant in all areas of regulations and legislation and carrying out certain compliance activities such as obtaining relevant information from internal and external stakeholders to complete the Pensions Regulator’s Annual Return and completing compliance paperwork for implementing changes to Participating Employers.  Update quarterly reports providing status of all compliance matters.
• Manage distribution of SMPI statements and ensure database for legacy Additional Voluntary Contribution providers is kept up to date.
• Manage the various internal and external stakeholders in order to produce the statutory Scheme Annual Report and Accounts and dDraft sections for the Trustees’ report in the Scheme Annual Report and Financial Statements and get stakeholder sign-off.
• Monitor technical bulletins; identify and provide summaries of key matters of interest to relevant stakeholders, identifying actions and ensuring those actions are taken by appropriate stakeholders.
• Accurately maintain technical databases of important historic scheme information.
• Manage the production and execution of formal documents process: liaising with internal and external stakeholders to explain why documents are required, obtain relevant approvals, answer queries and ensure documents are executed within required timescales.  Assist in logging and safely storing documents.
• Complete surveys and statutory requests for information.
• Provide assistance to secretaries of the Trustee Boards and Committees; including pro-active forward agenda planning, preparation of papers for Trustee meetings (including occasionally presenting at Trustee/Committee meetings), ensuring other contributors are aware of what is required of them and that they provide their papers in good time, writing up minutes and monitoring and chasing actions.
• Assist in maintaining best practice in trustee governance.  Maintain key Trustee governance and key information documents and ensure the Trustee electronic storage system is kept up to date with assistance from the Admin Support Team.  Assist in delivery of Trustee training, assist trustees with their personal development plans and oversee the Admin Support Team in implementing changes to the Trustee