Pensions & benefits

Housing Associations

We are the National Housing Federation’s preferred supplier for pensions advice. We believe we have exactly the expertise and experience in advising housing associations that you need to achieve positive outcomes and allocate resources most efficiently.

Ultimately our aim is to help housing associations run their pension arrangements better, so they can focus their time and funds on their key objective of providing affordable housing.

What can we expect from the 2023 SHPS triennial valuation and what should we do about it?

This webinar presented jointly by LCP and Anthony Collins Solicitors explains what to expect from the SHPS valuation and provide a recommended action plan to assist you in preparing for the results.

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Beacon

Helping trustees and pension scheme sponsors better manage climate risks and opportunities

Beacon is an intuitive tool that helps pension scheme stakeholders better understand and engage with climate risks and opportunities, providing clear actions that are tailored to their unique circumstances.

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How we can help

We advise housing associations on all aspects of pensions and benefits, including actuarial, investment, employer covenant, specialist DC and financial wellbeing. Our range of expertise and broad client base means we have strong insight into the housing sector and are well placed to support housing associations across all areas of the increasingly complex and fast-changing pension environment.

We have advised associations representing around 25% of the English housing market, with organisations ranging in size from under 5,000 units to over 200,000 units, and including more than half of the G15 group of the largest London associations.

We have worked with a number of housing associations to create well-designed pension offerings, including consideration of Living Pensions standards. We are also working with clients on the idea of Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes – a new option expected to provide pensions more efficiently than DC, without the risk to employers of defined benefit.

The three key issues the sector faces currently are:

Managing legacy DB schemes, and realising value from them where possible

For housing associations, managing legacy DB schemes such as SHPS and the LGPS can take up a disproportionate amount of resource. Recent regulatory changes are adding to this – although there are now opportunities to deal with and benefit from such schemes, which we can help with.

Improving outcomes from DC schemes

Many housing associations are concerned that their employees’ DC pensions should offer better value and may not provide employees with sufficient funds for retirement. Our DC specialists have worked with many housing associations to improve their DC offerings to their employees, focusing on investments choices and default investment strategies that better reflect how members will be using their funds, whilst also looking at member charges, and opportunities to improve engagement.

Providing benefits to ensure staff retention and deliver social impact

For many associations, the drive to deliver on social impact extends to wanting to ensure employees are looked after in old age as well as whilst they’re working. Providing attractive benefits to staff enables housing associations to retain the best talent to achieve the best outcomes for residents.