UK - One-third of British pension funds still do not offer any training to their trustees while four in 10 of British schemes do not have any risk management processes in place, according to The Pensions Regulator (TPR).

The proportion of schemes offering no training to trustees now stands at 34%, improving from last year's 44%, TPR has stated.

Nonetheless, the Pension Regulator is continuing to support its policy of 'light touch' regulation, over prescriptive rules, and said today intervention should be a last resort.

Presenting the occupations pension scheme governance survey findings for 2007 in London today, John Ashcroft, head of defined contribution (DC), governance and Europe at The Pensions Regulator, said there is still scope for improvement in areas such as risk management and internal controls.

"We believe that good governance is achieved through increased levels of knowledge and understanding, not extra levels of regulations."

The study, which surveyed 1300 UK pension schemes, also suggested larger schemes are monitoring scheme administration more closely and are generally better governed than smaller schemes.

Furthermore, schemes open to new members, compared with closed schemes, show the greatest improvement in terms of governance, the Pensions Regulator added.

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