The Pensions Regulator will consider if schemes should be required to have professional trustees and assess the case for greater regulation of administrators and system providers, PP can reveal.
In an exclusive interview with Professional Pensions, the watchdog's executive director for regulatory policy, analysis and advice David Fairs said the regulator had been supportive of the industry work that has been done to develop standards and accreditation for professional trustees.
But he said the regulator was now looking at how it could use this accreditation more broadly and would be consulting on the issue in spring - asking questions in a range of areas, including whether it would be appropriate for all trustee boards to have a professional trustee and what would be the challenges and benefits of such a move.
Fairs says the regulator would also look more closely at the growing use of sole trustees to check they were challenging sponsoring employers sufficiently.
He said: "During the course of the year when actuarial valuations are being filed, we will probably be having a much closer look at those schemes with a sole trustee and getting ourselves comfortable that the right level of debate and challenge has been made around funding positions."
In the interview, Fairs said the regulator is also concerned about the quality of scheme administration as well as the security of the data administrators hold.
He said: "We're beginning to consider whether we should have greater regulatory grip over administrators - at the moment, we don't have any specific powers and there is no authorisation regime for administrators - but we are starting to think about some of the issues not just around administrators but also the systems that those administrators use as well."
