A consortium of some of the UK’s largest defined benefit (DB) pension schemes have partners with Quietroom to develop a new GMP equalisation (GMPe) communications toolkit.

The toolkit, which includes an animation, was developed to help schemes explain what GMPe means in a clear, simple and engaging way to their members. Commenting on behalf of the group of DB schemes partnering on the project, Brightwell head of member communication, Kirsty Aljewicz, said: “Communicating to members about GMPe is something we’re all going to have to do but it’s far from simple. As we’re all grappling with this issue, we thought it would be great to work together on this challenge and develop something which not only benefits our own schemes but benefits the whole industry. The hope is that this toolkit will make communicating GMP easy peasy!”

Smart Pension has invested £550m in the AMX-DWS Global Low Carbon Stewardship Fund.

The new low-carbon global equity index strategy aims to offers innovative stewardship voting capabilities, and is one of the first pooled funds to offer institutional investors split voting within a pooled fund. Smart Pension seeded £550m in the fund and supported AMX-DWS in its design, which is also aligned with Smart Pension’s goal to be net zero by 2040. The fund is a partnership between Carne platform, AMX, asset manager DWS, stewardship provider Minerva Analytics and index provider Solactive. The news comes after Smart Pension announced it had more than halved the emissions of the Smart Sustainable Growth Fund in February this year, after becoming one of the first UK pension providers to offer customers a range of growth funds that are all fully sustainable in January.

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) has updated its Pension Sharing on Divorce Guidance.

The guidance was designed to support private sector occupational pension schemes when providing information to scheme members on court orders that help couples divide their pension funds upon divorce. It also includes a recommended range for schemes to charge members, as well as a flowchart outlining the circumstances when charges can be made. The new guidance is set to apply from 2 January 2024, the first working day of the new year and National Divorce Day. Commenting on the update, PLSA deputy director of policy, Joe Dabrowski, said: “Understandably, working out how to split pension assets is not the first priority for most separating couples. But it is really important to make sure both parties are provided for in retirement, especially when one party has been the primary earner and built up a pension, while the other – usually because they have taken on more family caring responsibilities – has not. Our Pension Sharing on Divorce Guidance is one of our most downloaded tools and an important resource to help carry out Pension Sharing Orders fairly and consistently.”

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