ICAS Pensions Panel
The ICAS Pensions Panel represents ICAS on matters impacting on pension provision and the pensions industry, in relation to:
- Public policy
- Law, regulation and governance
- Financial reporting
- Auditing and assurance
Pensions Panel revised policy positions
- UK government policy on pensions should be set with the long-term in mind. It should seek to achieve long-term stability for the UK pension system and cross-party consensus.
- We support the Exempt, Exempt, Tax (EET) approach to pension taxation and advocate for a long-term approach to the setting of pension tax allowances, including the uprating of allowances by inflation. The UK’s approach to pension taxation should:
- Include an approach to tax allowances which simplifies their application to both Defined Benefit (DB) pensions and Defined Contribution (DC) savings and doesn’t disadvantage DC saving relative to DB pensions.
- Incentivise employers to contribute to employee pensions and incentivise employees and the self-employed to save for retirement.
- Consider existing employment arrangements to avoid creating additional complexity which can be exploited by unscrupulous financial advisers.
- We support a robust but proportionate legal and regulatory environment which encourages innovation in the pensions industry. Thus enabling the industry, scheme trustees and other fiduciaries to focus on providing pension savers with good outcomes in retirement. To achieve this, policymakers and regulators must be mindful of the differences between DB and DC, recognising that in future DC is going to be the pension saving option for the majority those working in the private sector.
- Sustainability governance and reporting requirements, currently placed on pension schemes with assets of over £1 billion and providers of contract-based workplace pensions, should be kept under review by the UK government and regulators. This will ensure that lessons can be learned following the initial roll out of requirements in 2021 and 2022. The UK government and regulators should take a proportionate and less onerous approach to sustainability governance and reporting requirements which may, in future, be placed on smaller pensions schemes.
- We would like to see a review and rationalisation of the annual reporting requirements placed on pension schemes which considers the separation of governance and investment information solely relevant to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) from the annual reports of pension schemes. Consideration should be given to the relevance of information currently prepared to ensure it meets the needs of its intended audience and that the cost of producing information, including audit and adviser fees, does not outweigh its value. Related regulations should be reviewed and updated to ensure that the reporting requirements are clear to avoid undue complexity resulting in a tick box approach to compliance.
- We support lifelong access to financial education, starting in primary schools. Making financial education available in both primary and secondary schools will give children from all backgrounds the opportunity to develop good money habits. This will better prepare them for managing money throughout their life - benefitting them, their families and communities. Access to financial education at key points in a person’s life beyond their school years is also needed to support good financial decision-making. The implementation of pension dashboards provides risks as well as opportunities and people need to be able to understand the information provided by these dashboards. Key to this will be providing separate information on a person’s DB and DC pensions.
Panel Members
Matt Cooper (Chair)
Matt was appointed Chair of the ICAS Pensions Panel in December 2018. He is a director at PwC and leads PwC's employer covenant advisory team in Scotland. He is a CA (2005 qualified) and has been advising corporates and trustees with defined benefit pension schemes since 2007. His client base has included over 50 pension schemes with assets ranging from £4m to £20bn. Areas of advice he provides include ongoing scheme funding and contribution affordability, covenant monitoring, contingency planning, moral hazard risk, pension-driven restructuring and the assessment of potential detriment as a result of corporate transactions.
He has developed areas of specialism including Banking and Utility companies, having worked closely with clients in these sectors. In particular how the funding of pension schemes interacts with the other regulated industries as defined by FCA/PRA and Ofgem respectively. He is also part of PwC's team focusing on the adoption of integrated risk management, in particular how this can be demonstrated for small and medium-sized schemes.
Before specialising in pensions, Matt had broad experience including corporate audit, due diligence, and a 9-month secondment the strategic business services team at Clydesdale Bank.
Alistair Russell-Smith
Alistair works for Spence & Partners which provides actuarial, consultancy and pension scheme administration services.
Brian Mackie
Brian has broadly-based Chief Financial Officer/ Chief Operating Officer with over 25 years experience in multi-national consumer goods businesses, covering private equity, new start-ups, joint ventures, co-operatives, family business and public company situations.
He has comprehensive experience across all areas of corporate finance, accounting, strategy, planning, tax, treasury, pensions, HR, IT and legal. He also has very strong experience in Mergers & Acquisitions, private equity, debt financing and a restructuring track record, covering acquisitions, disposals, restructurings/ closures and turnaround situations.
He is skilled in multi-cultural stakeholder management in joint-venture structures and has highly developed skills in IFRS Accounting Standards, tax, treasury, pensions and IT. Brian also has operational experience with direct general management and commercial responsibility for overseas subsidiaries /regions, and as COO in turnaround situations.
He has lived and worked in multiple countries.
Chris Wilkie
Chris Wilkie is an ICAS member, having been admitted in 2007.
Chris is an Audit Director for Johnston Carmichael, based at the firm’s Glasgow Office. Chris is also Head of Pensions Audit for the firm and is Audit RI for a portfolio of approximately 80 pension scheme clients across the UK. His portfolio includes: ongoing pension schemes with an active and continuing employer; schemes with an employer which has suffered an insolvency event and the pension scheme has entered a Pension Protection Fund (PPF) assessment period; and “irregular” schemes where The Pensions Regulator has removed the incumbent trustees and appointed an independent trustee.
Chris has worked in the pensions audit team at Johnston Carmichael since 2004. His experience includes auditing defined benefit, defined contribution and hybrid pension schemes covering schemes with up to 1 billion of assets and 10,000 members. He regularly meets with the PPF and other professional advisors to the PPF to discuss current issues impacting the pensions industry.
Greig McGuinness
Bio to follow.
John Moffat
John is self-employed, trading as JRM Training and Professional Services. Until October 2015, John worked with Grant Thornton in Scotland for 37 years. During his period with Grant Thornton, John specialised in auditing and financial reporting, in relation to large unquoted private companies, pension schemes, solicitors and similar professional service organisations
Throughout his professional career, John has had a very close involvement with ICAS. He has been a member of the ICAS Business Policy Committee and served on AAT Council as an ICAS nominated member for 5 years. John also delivers training courses for BPP, as part of its partnership with ICAS. John is the immediate past Chair of the Pensions Panel.
Louisa Knox
Louisa is a longstanding partner within the Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP Pensions law team and has an extensive range of experience advising on pensions law issues for trustees and companies. She has significant experience in advising through the lifetime of occupational pension schemes in matters including risk reduction measures, including scheme restructuring, as well as the impact of commercial activity on schemes and negotiations with The Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund. Louisa has in-depth knowledge of EU and UK constitutional reform matters affecting schemes.
In addition, she advises regularly on the detail of European law as it affects pension provision – equalisation and equality law being particular specialisms
Nicholas McShane
Nicholas is a Senior Manager for PwC Switzerland in the Banking and Capital Markets division based in the firm’s Zürich office. Nicholas joined PwC Switzerland in 2019 having previously worked in the financial services audit department of KPMG and as a professional trainee auditor with Audit Scotland in the United Kingdom. His portfolio with PwC has included the financial audit of universal banks and global insurance companies. He is currently involved in the financial audit engagement of a universal bank where he specialises in the areas of pensions (from both the employer and scheme perspectives), compensation and restructuring under US GAAP and IFRS.
In his previous roles, Nicholas gained extensive experience in the audits of both private sector defined benefit pension plans as well as local government pension schemes. His portfolio of pension scheme clients has comprised over 40 with assets ranging from £50m to £19bn.
Nicholas is a member of ICAS having been admitted in 2016 and has been registered as an Audit Expert with the Federal Audit Oversight Authority of Switzerland since 2020.
Philip Briggs
Philip is a Partner at RSM and has over 25 years’ experience of delivering audit services to some of the largest UK pension schemes, Philip also has extensive experience of leading the audits of a variety of investment organisations ranging from some of the largest global asset servicing entities to smaller alternative and hedge fund managers. In addition to audit, Philip also performs risk and governance reviews for his clients.
Philip has led the audit work for a range of internal control reporting assignments (AAF01/06 and SAS70 reports) including some of the earliest applications of these frameworks to pension administrators. He leads the provision of the RSM accreditation services to PASA (the Pension Administration Standards Association). In addition to client responsibilities as Audit Principal Philip heads the National Pensions technical team within the National Pensions Group.
Philip is a member of the PRAG SORP Working Party, previously chaired the PRAG Internal Audit Working Party and is a member of the ICAEW Master Trust Assurance Framework Working Party. He is a regular speaker at other industry forums.
Rachel Northwood
Rachel is a senior manager based at PWC’s Glasgow Office. Rachel has ten years’ experience as a specialist pensions auditor: she also has extensive experience working in the wider financial services sector in the UK and US.
Her portfolio of pensions clients includes DB and hybrid schemes, those administered by third parties as well as those managed in-house, covering all sizes up to those with net assets in excess of £15 billion. She is also involved in managing non-audit assignments such as benefit reviews, risk register reviews and controls benchmarking exercises. Rachel is a member of ICAEW.
Ross Graham
Ross is an Associate Partner at Aon.
