The BT and BBC pension schemes have the best occupational schemes in the UK for responsible investment, a charity has found.

In a report by ShareAction, which evaluates how schemes address members' concerns about the behaviour of the businesses they invest in, it was also revealed that the GlaxoSmithKline, Tata and Rolls Royce schemes were given the lowest scores.

In general, the report found that there were poor responsible investment policies in place in schemes and that poor transparency and communication still existed within the bigger older schemes.

Catherine Howarth, ShareAction chief executive, said: "The pension schemes we've ranked are amongst the UK's most powerful investors, but our survey shows that only a few take that responsibility seriously.

"If big employers like GlaxoSmithKline and Barclays want to improve their CSR credentials, they need to make sure their pensions schemes invest in a way that is transparent and accountable."

Although all but one of the schemes listed in the league table had a specific responsible investment policy, the quality of these is poor, with six policies making only vague and generic statements.

Despite this negative finding, the report also noted that there has been an improvement in the way funds publish detailed reports of their engagement with investee companies, with 11 funds now doing so in comparison to only five in 2009.

Even though the bigger, older pension schemes that were surveyed had poor transparency and communication with their members, ShareAction said that master trusts that have come into existence since auto-enrolment have shown more of an interest in communicating with members.

According to the report, two out of the four surveyed publish the top ten holdings for each fund they provide.

However, only eight out of 22 schemes who responded to the survey hold face-to-face meeting with their members.

Howarth said: "There's absolutely no excuse for schemes keeping members in the dark about how their money is managed. It's encouraging to see some new pension providers using social media to connect with their members, not least to demystify pensions jargon but also so as to conduct regular member surveys."

First published 27.01.2014

monique_simpson@wilmington.co.uk