The cross industry GMP Equalisation Working Group (GMPEWG) today published Guidance on member communication, entitled ‘Guide to GMP Communications – Early Planning Stage’. The GMPEWG is chaired by the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA), the Communications sub-group of this was set up earlier this year to support trustees in communicating the complexities of GMP Equalisation to their scheme members.
Louise Harris, Chair of the sub-group, commented: “Communicating GMP equalisation is a complex subject – something that members aren’t expecting but need to know about, and something as an industry we should help them to understand. This committee, comprised of a diverse group of experts, are using their many different skills in communications to help guide and support schemes in how they approach explaining any changes to members and hopefully, at the same time, drive consistency in communication across the industry. This will be particularly important in instances where individuals might have had multiple employers in their working life, and so might potentially be receiving communications on the same issue from several different sources.
“Our guidance is very much driven by member, not industry, need and our guiding principles in writing it have been simple, no jargon, inclusive and practical. We’ve also included a written Q&A schemes can use for members, together with a practical checklist. Having completed this we’re nowalready moving onto the next piece covering the Implementation Stage. We have a short three minute survey that schemes can fill in here to help us scope this next vital piece of Guidance , we would be very grateful if as many as possible would undertake. Pulling together shared learnings and experience helps us create the most effective Guidance possible for the industry.”
