Subscriptions

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION FOR THE YEAR TO MARCH 31 2024

The Society operates a subscription scale, under which the amount of a Member’s (membership is corporate) subscription depends on the number of people it employs full-time in pension functions. The minimum subscription is £800. The maximum is £38,100. (Special reductions apply in the early years of membership, for Members with five or fewer pension staff and reductions on the full year’s subscription are available for joiners part way through the subscription year (see below).

The subscription scale is set out below. If you have any questions, Carla Smidt would be pleased to help (info@the-spp.co.uk)

Pension functions are as follows:-

• Accountancy Services
• Actuarial Services
• Administration Services
• Contract Based Pension Provider (including SIPP provider)
• Corporate Finance/Employer Covenant Advice
• Corporate IFA Services
• Custodianship
• Education and Communication
• Employee Benefit Services (including one or more of corporate wrap, flexible benefits, voluntary benefits, healthcare, insurance products, design, communication and administration)
• Fiduciary Management
• General Pension Consultancy (including scheme design)
• Independent Trusteeship
• International Benefit Advice
• Investment Consulting and Implementation
• Investment/Fund Management
• Investment Performance Analysis
• Legal Services, including disputes
• Longevity Risk Solutions
• Pension Annuity Provision
• Pension and Financial Services PR Consultancy
• Pension Wind-up Services (including one or more of advice on and provision of buy-outs and buy-ins, advice on entry to PPF and advice on entry to FAS)
• Technology Services
• Trustee Secretarial and other Support Services

The subscription scale is :

Umbrella companies of an IFA network pay a further subscription of £2,500, in addition to that arising from the scale above.

All those substantially engaged in pension functions, including, for example, admin and secretarial support, should be taken into account in determining the number of full-time people. Where centralised services, for example finance or accounts, are provided for an organisation through a parent or associate company, for which membership of the Society would be inappropriate, or where there are employees who are not engaged full-time in pension functions, but carry out duties, such as investment research or back office duties, which are essential to its operation in pensions, it is intended that a realistic assessment should be made of the notional number of staff deployed for the organisation’s benefit, for inclusion in the full-time total.

It is important to emphasise that only staff involved in pensions should be included when calculating the subscription. As referred to in the previous paragraph, some organisations have staff who spend only part of their time on pensions. These should not each be counted as one person for subscription purposes, since this could result in an excessive charge. Instead a reasonable estimate should be made of the number of full-time pension people to whom these staff equate. It is for individual organisations to decide what basis is appropriate for making the estimate. Examples of bases for arriving at a full time equivalent would be to reduce the number of staff who have some involvement in pensions (a) in the ratio of the organisation’s pensions-related income to non-pension related income; or (b) in the ratio of pension funds under management to total funds under management; or (c) in the ratio of their hours spent on pensions to hours spent in total in the organisation’s business.