Trustees should focus on pro-active strategies, rather than judging their own situation on non-fund-specific judgements or in comparison to other schemes, a pension consultant has said.

Research has found that institutional investors were "evenly spread" in defining performance suggestions, such as 'performance against their peers' and 'performance against a scheme specific benchmark', Spence & Partners said.

However, Marian Elliott, Spence & Partners head of trustee advisory services, said trustees should focus on how the fund has performed relative to their particular scheme specific objectives, and should always work towards improving their scheme's funding position.

Elliott said: "There is no comfort to be gained by comparing performance with other schemes or with standard industry benchmarks.

"When making any investment decisions, trustees should have firmly in mind where it is they want to go and how much risk they can afford to take to get there."

She added: "Trustees need to be taking a much more intrinsic view on their investments and funding level – after all, no-one else can do the paddling for them."

First published 21.01.2014

monique_simpson@wilmington.co.uk