Summarising evaluation over 2024
The Accountability Council (AC) is positive about the past year’s cooperation with the Board and other fund bodies and requests that the Board considers the AC’s recommendations in its future policy-making. In the AC’s opinion, Pensioenfonds PDN organises its communication, investments, risk policy and associated operational processes well. The AC requests that the Board places particular emphasis on the speed with which information is shared with the AC. This is crucial for the cooperation and to enable the AC to fulfil its advisory role in the transition to the Future Pensions Act. In this advisory role the AC must be able to assess the various Future Pension Act components in conjunction.
The Accountability Council’s complete evaluation, including recommendations, can be found in Pensioenfonds PDN’s full 2024 annual report.
Follow-up recommendations for 2023 (in 2024)
In the annual evaluation of 2023, the AC identified four priorities for 2024.
- Progressing the Future Pensions Act transition process, partly based on its own action plan, which is coordinated with the Board.
- Communications towards members and pensioners in the context of the Future Pensions Act.
- The formation of a future vision for Pensioenfonds PDN after the Future Pensions Act transition.
- Monitoring the general operation costs and the Future Pensions Act project costs. These priorities are reiterated in this year’s evaluation with the following recommendations:
Re 1 Recommendation
- Accelerate the communication of Board decisions and/or involve the AC in ongoing issues so that the AC can make timely preparations for its advisory role on the transition decision, including the use of the fund’s assets.
- The activities stated in the Future Pensions Act detailed plan are behind schedule, partly due to the social partners’ incomplete delivery of the transition plan, according to the DNB’s further guidelines. A consequence of this is that various planned actions have been postponed. As the intended transition date of 1 January 2026 is not considered feasible, the AC requests that the Board adheres to a realistic schedule and to monitor this closely.
Re 2 Recommendation
The AC encourages the Board to communicate more intensively with members, deferred members
and pensioners, and recommends:
- communicating more frequently, proactively, more online and not only ‘event-driven’;
- ensuring that in case of communications aimed at specific target groups, the readership is sufficiently representative and matches the cross-section of all communication target groups;
- ensuring that the detailed Future Pensions Act communication plan, including content by topic, timelines for various messages and the medium to be used, is ready by the end of the first quarter of 2025;
- placing an additional focus on communications regarding specific elements including the surviving dependent’s pension, the Pre-Pension Savings Scheme (PPS) and the Net Pension Scheme (NPS).
Re 3 Recommendation
- Create space within the Board to clarify in 2025 how the fund’s strategy will be implemented after the Future Pensions Act transition. The AC advises forming a fully-fledged project team and allocating the necessary budget and resources to ensure that progress is made by 2025.
The Pensioenfonds PDN mission statement rightly emphasises the important role of innovation. Innovation is the lifeline to the future for every organisation. So far, this role has not yet been clarified and it is unclear whether this innovation concerns Pensioenfonds PDN or DPS.
Re 4 Recommendation
- The AC recommends establishing a clear long-term budget that takes into account the intended cost level after the Future Pensions Act transition.|
Recommendations 2024
The AC is making the following recommendations, based on its findings:
Indexation
- • Involve the AC at an earlier stage in discussing the consequences of whether or not to use a transition
- Financial Assessment Framework (FTK) in 2025.
Contribution agreements
- In view of the fact that the current agreement runs until 2025, the AC recommends that the Board consults the social partners in time regarding what to do with future pension accrual and contributions within the FTK now that the transition date has been postponed until 1 January 2027.
DPS Governance
- The AC does not have a clear picture of the risk that Pensioenfonds PDN runs as a DPS shareholder. Be more transparent about the financial risks that Pensioenfonds PDN runs and clarify what happens with any profits or potential deficits and which financing is expected from Pensioenfonds PDN, certainly in relation to the future DPS strategy.
Board
- Focus more on the sound implementation of the parity structure, the risks of a ‘two-speed Board’ and the key-person risk.
Elections
- As a Board and in cooperation with the AC, ensure that elections are a focus point for the management of all affiliated companies and in the future, together with the AC, organise a campaign to stimulate employees to put themselves forward for election to the AC.
Investments
- The AC is informed regarding the decision-making relating to investments. The Board decisions fall within the policy, in line with the investment plan. A decision was taken to opt for more certainty about the moment of transition. The AC agrees with this decision.
Risk management
- In the AC’s opinion, the Board’s risk management has been well designed and the Board manages this well.
2025 Priorities
The AC would like to reiterate the priorities set for 2024 in 2025 as they remain relevant. The AC would also like to add a 5th priority (indexation) for 2025.
- Progress of the Future Pensions Act transition process.
- Communications towards members, deferred members and pensioners in the context of the Future Pensions Act.The formation of a future vision for Pensioenfonds PDN after the Future Pensions Act transition.
- Monitoring the general operation costs and the Future Pensions Act project costs.
- Policy with respect to indexation until the transition date.
