eShare surveyed 114 Pension Funds and their Advisers to gauge their thoughts on the role of the consultants in relation to scheme information.  55% of schemes felt sensitive governance information should not be held by their advisers and 63% of advisers agreed.

Managing Director of eShare Alister Esam said, “I find it comforting that professional advisers are heeding the warning from Sarbanes Oxley and other principals in believing that they shouldn’t be the provider of Governance and Knowledge Management Software.”

The Survey continued to discover that 44% of schemes felt worried that if their advisers held their data they might try to cross sell them additional services.  As one respondent commented:

“My concern would be the constant selling of other things if you let your advisers have too much information.”

In addition, 59% of schemes were concerned that if their advisers held all their data they would become too reliant on them.  Another respondent said “I think it might tie trustees to a particular adviser if the data was held by them or it would prove costly to switch providers.”

Commenting on the results of the survey, Esam said “What we can see is that when presented with an opportunity to profit from knowledge, to the detriment of good governance advisers are actually resisting the temptation and steering their clients away.  We see this more and more as advisers turn to people like us as independents to manage knowledge where they have such a clear conflict.”