If you have a workplace personal pension - we look after your interests

The Independent Governance Committee (IGC) works solely in the interests of customers who have a workplace personal pension. It is independent of Phoenix Life.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced the role of the IGC for workplace pensions to ensure the pension schemes deliver value for money for members. On this page you'll be able to read the annual reports from the IGC, give your feedback and meet the committee members.

 

What we do

Our role is to act in your interest, assessing the value for money you are receiving from your workplace personal pension and to challenge Phoenix where we feel that it could be doing more for you. One of these challenges was to understand the response by Phoenix to ensure customers interests were maintained during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Value for money is not just about what something costs. We also look at the quality of what you get in return for your pension savings and how it compares with other workplace pension schemes. We examine different aspects of your experience as a scheme member to form a complete picture of the value for money that Phoenix is providing you.

 

To assess if you are getting value for money we look at seven areas:

Investments

We examine where your money is invested and how well the fund is performing.

Costs and charges

We review the charges and costs deducted from your pension savings.

Customer service

We look at the level of customer service you receive.
 

 

Customer communications and engagement

We review how Phoenix communicate with you to ensure that you can understand what’s happening with your pension savings and take action when you need to.

 

Risk and governance

We look at how the rules, practices and standards within the business are managed to ensure they deliver a strong governance to support the effective management of Phoenix’s risks.

Management culture

We look for evidence to ensure that there are clear examples of Phoenix wanting to do the right thing for customers by continually seeking to improve customer outcomes.
 

Application of ESG principles to investments

We examine the extent to which the decisions on how your money is invested is driven by Environmental, Social and Governance considerations.

 

2023 Annual Report Summary

The role of the IGC is to act solely in the interests of customers who have a workplace pension contract with Phoenix Life to review the value for money those customers receive. Every year the IGC produces a report that explains what they’ve done and what the results are from their value for money assessments. The report below sets out the value for money scores for each area. It includes what’s changed from last year, challenges to Phoenix Life and what action customers can take.

 

Representing you

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) sometimes consults on changes to its rules. Where these could affect the role of Independent Governance Committees or we think the proposed changes could affect members of workplace schemes, we may respond to give our views about how the new rules could work best for you.


 

Meet the committee

We have made some changes to our IGC to ensure a consistent governance approach for Phoenix Life workplace customers and Standard Life Assurance Limited workplace customers. Our members are a mix of independent and Phoenix Group members working collaboratively to ensure you get value for money.

We would like to thank our outgoing IGC members for all the many great contributions to the IGC during their tenure. Sheila Gunn for pioneering the fit for purpose protocol that is used for all customer communications, Ingrid Kirby for helping with the implementation of the Sustainable Multi-Asset Fund and Venetia Trayhurn for creating the framework to assess the newly implemented investment pathways.

Meet the board members