Trustee changes – AMP response

October’s trustees’ annual newsletter – Pensions News – carried an article on page three headlined “Trustee constituencies”, which outlined a review of and possible changes to the Trustee Board’s constitution “to ensure it continues to be ‘fit for purpose’ for the next phase of the Scheme’s life”. (The article is reproduced in full below.)

On behalf of this Association, secretary Gerald Mowbray has sent a formal response to David Astley, Trinity Mirror’s Group Pensions Manager. (David Astley is also the MGN Pensions Trustee Board Secretary and an “A” Trustee Director on the same Trustee Board). The AMP response was also copied to independent trustees’ chairman Joanna Matthews.

There are four main areas of concern, and these are the AMP’s proposals:
Trustee Board Size: Accept present 10 Trustees plus Independent Chairman.
Constituencies: Accept merger of “B” and “C” categories into one overall category of member voting. However, strongly request that the present constituencies remain with the following trustee membership – London 3, English Print Sites 1, Scotland 1. Should no candidate be nominated for a specific constituency vacancy at the first call for nominations, the vacancy then to be open to all members.
Trustee Term of Office: Return to the long-established (until 2010) up to three-year term of office, and staggered so that only a certain number of directors are elected in a given year. Amend 2018 elections to between 2-4 years to restore staggered term-of-office expiry dates of Member-Nominated Trustees .
Trustee Board Secretary: Return to the long-established, separate and non-trustee role for this position – and for the incumbent not also to be an “A” Trustee.

AMP members, and indeed any members of the MGN Pension Scheme (the New Scheme), are invited to send their own observations on the Trustee Board’s plans to: David Astley, Secretary, MGN Pension Trustees Limited, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP.

From Pensions News, October 2017: The Trustee recently invited members of the Scottish ‘deferred members’ population to nominate a successor to Andrew Watson, who was no longer eligible to stand in that constituency. Unfortunately, despite extending the invitation to that constituency twice, we had no nominations to succeed Andrew. This, together with the completion of the merger of the MGPS and MGPSPS into the MGN Pension Scheme, prompted the Trustee Board to review its constitution to ensure it continues to be ‘fit for purpose’ for the next phase of the Scheme’s life .
The Trustee Board is still considering the detailed structure for our Scheme, which needs to recognise that: ■ less than 7.5% of members still work for the Company, ■ members stopped building up additional pension benefits over seven years ago, and ■ as the Scheme remains in deficit, the Trustee Board remains mindful of the running costs .
However, there are two areas of change that the Trustee Board wishes to bring to members’ attention .
Currently a ‘B’ Trustee is nominated by and elected from deferred members of the Scheme in the constituencies shown in the table on page 4. A ‘C’ Trustee on the other hand is nominated by and elected from the UK resident pensioner (excluding dependent pensioner) members of the Scheme. From 1 January 2018, the Trustee Board is considering the removal of the distinction between ‘B’ Trustees and ‘C’ Trustees, and the geographical constituencies. Therefore, the proposal is that from 1 January 2018, all UK resident members (excluding dependent pensioner members) of the Scheme will be eligible to be nominated as a Member Nominated Trustee .
In the event that an election is needed, all members (excluding dependent pensioner members) will be eligible to vote to appoint a Member Nominated Trustee .
The Trustee Board is hoping these proposed changes will encourage more members to put themselves forward to become a Trustee of the MGN Pension Scheme .
The Trustee Board is currently operating with a “casual vacancy” for a ‘B’ Trustee Director following the retirement of Andrew Watson. To maintain the balance of the Trustee Board, Charles Collier-Wright, one of the employer appointed ‘A’ Trustee Directors, has retired. From 1 January 2018, that casual vacancy will be formalised and the Company will not appoint a replacement for Charles. Thereafter, the Trustee Board will operate with 11 Trustee Directors made up of an Independent Chairman, 5 Employer Appointed Trustee Directors and 5 Member Nominated Trustee Directors .
The terms of office of 3 of the 5 current Member Nominated Trustee Directors are due to expire in early 2018. The Trustee Board will seek nominations, and if necessary hold an election, in line with the changes outlined above.

Tom Rand’s inky memoirs

Former Daily Mirror printer TOM RAND takes his own trip down memory lane. Go to Join Us>All Our Yesterdays to find out more.

I always look forward to getting Mirror Pensioner newsletter and reading about people who used to work at the Mirror, so I’d like to add some stories about the men who worked with the black stuff (printing ink) in the Machine Room.

I started work at a printers …

 

Committee news

RAY EVANS has joined the AMP committee and will take on the role of deputy treasurer. Sadly, Richard Polybank has been unable to continue in that role due to ill health. You can read more about Ray on the Committee page.

In other developements, committee member TONY PATEY has taken on the role of deputy secretary, to ease Gerald Mowbray’s burden, and CRAWFIE MCAFEE has stood down from day-to-day committee business and joined the ranks of our honorary committee members. The other honoraries are: Monty Court, David Robertson, Arthur Saxby, Alan Shillum and Pat Smyllie.

 

Lino ship know how to party

See Members’ Noticeboard for Chas Bates’s report of Maxwell Day and news of another get together.

Digger’s Memory Lane

Our old friend Digger Bowry’s had a stroll down Memory Lane. Go to All Our Yesterdays and have a look.

The Tracing Group

When you consider the size of the pensioner and deferred pensioner population Trinity Mirror has to deal with, it’s not surprising they occasionally lose track of an individual pension scheme member.

This is often, but not always, due to a change of address that has not been notified to them.

So Trinity Mirror’s pension department uses a company called The Tracing Group to try and locate pension scheme members with whom they have lost contact – known as the “gone aways”.

These are mostly from the relatively large group of deferred pensioners (i.e. those people who belonged to the pension scheme in the past but have yet to begin drawing their pension.)

If you receive a letter similar to that pictured you can rest assured it’s genuine and not a scam. If you would like further reassurance before you reply to The Tracing Group, you can check with TM pensions on 020 7293 2050.

 

AGM – Express takeover, schemes merger, and trustee re-shuffle

THE BIG news of the day was confirmation of the ongoing takeover bid by Trinity Mirror for Northern & Shell – which includes the Express and Star newspapers.

This was confirmed to the AMP’s reasonably well-attended recent annual general meeting at the St Alban’s Centre in Holborn, London, by Trinity Mirror’s group finance director Vijay Vaghela, who was the principal speaker.

There would be back-office consolidation for cost savings, he said, but the national titles would remain separate.

Questions were asked from the floor about debt levels.  On the one hand the pension scheme was in deficit.  On the other, the company felt able to borrow large sums in order to buy out N&S.  How come?

Vijay said that obviously they would not spend money on anything they did not feel they could turn a profit from.  He was bullish and felt it worth the risk.  He said they were taking much advice and there were many detailed meetings going on and they would not rush into anything without very careful consideration.

His refreshing (and hopefully well-placed?) optimism was a far cry from Joanna Matthews’s earlier response to a letter from AMP secretary Gerald Mowbray, voicing concerns about pension funding in light of the deal.  Joanna, the Independent Chairman of the Trustee Board, wrote back saying “our trustees have not raised the issue with the newspaper…” Extraordinary.

Vijay told the meeting that “Trinity governance will go round the N&S pension schemes.”  They seemed to be in a significantly better funding situation because, as someone pointed out from the floor, “they had not had a Bob Maxwell”.

Joanna was the second speaker and was able to point up the success of the merger of our three pension schemes into a single MGN pension scheme.  She then announced that she was standing down after eight years, but would mentor the new independent chairman for six months.

The results of the actuarial review on the present pension-deficits funding agreement are expected before the end of March, 2018.

Joanna also announced the retirement from the Trustee Board of Charles Collier-Wright, a long-serving ‘A’ director.  He will not be replaced, and this re-balances the board following the retirement of ‘B’ director Andrew Watson.

AMP chairman Deborah Thomas then gave her report in which she voiced her worries about the proposed re-organisation of the Trustee Board – now that there is only one scheme to administer – with special concern over the Scottish constituency.

Our member-elected trustees, Andrew Golden and Alan Burns, both spoke.  In an impassioned speech, Alan took the opportunity to urge all members, indeed all MGN pensioners, to respond to the latest Trustee newsletter, Pensions News, and express their views or concerns about the proposed Trustee Board changes.

When the meeting closed and members poured out into the street, the sky had turned a strange apocalyptic yellow with a heavy red sun.  Does this augur well?  Watch this space.

OUT NOW! Mirror Pensioner

DID you get your Mirror Pensioner this autumn?

It’s another fabulous full-colour 16-pager with all the news, views, gossip and memories.

And it’s AMP members only.

What’s happening at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese?

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