The Group was inaugurated on 15 July 1976 at a time when there was concern that preparation of pension scheme accounts would be adversely dominated by the then emerging standards for company accounting.
Individual representatives of about 40 organisations joined during the first year, providing a membership with skills in all the disciplines involved in pensions work. This multiprofessional membership has remained PRAG's hallmark, together with the working party system. This was used initially when a number of small groups were put to work to produce PRAG's first report: Financial Reports for Pension Funds. This appeared early in 1978 as one of the NAPF's Notes on Pensions series of booklets. A foreword was provided by the President of the Pensions Management Institute, which had been founded at about the same time as PRAG, all this epitomising the continuously good relations that PRAG has had throughout its existence with other leading pension bodies.
The most important suggestion in that first report was that a pension fund should have a net assets statement rather than a conventional balance sheet. The Accounting Standards Committee, after due consultation, adopted most of PRAG's ideas in its Statement of Recommended Practice No 1, although this was not published until 1986, by which time PRAG's ideas had pretty well taken root anyway. As SORP 1 became practically mandatory by virtue of the 1986 Disclosure Regulations a large degree of uniformity of practice has since evolved.
Ironically, perhaps, when the Accounting Standards Board took over responsibility for setting accounting standards for the UK and decided to pass over to each sector concerned the maintenance and development of SORPs, it readily agreed that PRAG should be the lead body for the purpose of revising SORP 1, something the Goode Committee had recommended should be done. This culminated in the publication, in September 1996, of what is now known as the Pensions SORP, supported by the 1996 Pension Scheme Accounting Regulations under the Pensions Act 1995. Thus PRAG became a standard-setting body some twenty years after its foundation in reaction to that very process!
2002 saw the publication by PRAG of a revised Pensions SORP and, at the request of the Accounting Standards Board, the initiation of a debate, in the light of Financial Reporting Standard 17, about including a figure for future liabilities in the accounts of final salary pension schemes. Old PRAG hands experienced a distinct feeling of deja vu! After a consultation exercise in 2003 produced responses that were against such inclusion, the SORP Working Party started to explore ways of giving scheme members a clearer picture of their scheme's solvency.
Over the years, PRAG has published many more reports, covering various special areas of accounting, such as insurance policies or derivatives, as well as practical administration matters. One early initiative was to publish a glossary of terms. In view of its direct need and interest in the matter, the PMI was given the copyright in this publication, on the footing that the two organisations would continue to co-operate in the updating of what has become the pensions industry standard. The sixth edition published in 2002 continued that tradition.
Another field in which PRAG, for some years, played a significant part relates to accounting for pensions in the employer's accounts, particularly final salary benefits. When, after a considerable effort over many years, the Accounting Standards Committee produced Statement of Standard Accounting Policy 24, PRAG had an influential working party that on a number of occasions issued guidance and also submitted suggestions to the Accounting Standards Board for the revision of SSAP 24. PRAG later made a submission to the International Accounting Standards Committee in relation to its exposure draft E54 on the same subject, but it is fair to say that PRAG had little influence in the developments that led to either the revision of International Accounting Standard 19 Employee Benefits or, in the UK, to the ASB's Financial Reporting Standard 17 Retirement Benefits, published in November 2000.
Over a number of years an attempt was made by PRAG to collect useful data on the benefits administration costs of UK pension schemes but the wide diversity of size of schemes and the uneven nature of their data on the subject prevented any useful outcome. However the episode prompted a number of PRAG's larger members to get together and, with the Group's blessing, form the PALS (Pensions Administration for Large Schemes) Network, which is now independent and doing excellent work on a private basis for its 50 or so members.
Undoubtedly PRAG membership has been of most benefit to those who have enrolled for one or other of its working parties, of which there have usually been three or four on the go at any one time. Reports of their progress have been given to the membership at large at the well-attended one day annual meeting in November and, in recent years, also at a Spring or Summer afternoon meeting. These general meetings have also covered current matters of interest.
Another feature that has made PRAG unlike other pensions industry bodies in that it has always existed with apparently comparatively small financial resources. Until 1989 the annual subscription was just £10 per annum and it only increased from £20 to £30 in 2003. For that, a member gets a free copy of any publications that are produced and, if they attend the annual meeting, a somewhat subsidised lunch, so it is pretty good value! The pricing policy adopted in relation to publication of the Group's reports has always been designed to disseminate the information rather than make a profit. Despite these things, at the last count the Group, which nowadays has about 400 members, had around £70,000 to its name. Throughout most of PRAG's life the explanation lay entirely in the generous provision of staff time and facilities by the member organisations, the Group having relied, until 2004, on entirely unpaid secretarial and technical officials. Another factor has been that, since 1996, the publication of the Pensions SORP has generated royalties on a much greater scale.
PRAG has never seen itself as a campaigning or lobbying organisation, although it joins in public consultation processes on subjects about which it believes it has useful experience. It has not seen itself, either, as an educational body in the academic sense, such technical meetings as it has organised being truly in the nature of seminars. Its perceived impartiality led, in November 1998, to the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority (OPRA) appointing PRAG as its provider of accountancy advice and support on policy issues.
A simple but comprehensive constitution was adopted in PRAG's first year of life and at first the Committee numbered seven persons but, with the greater activity of the Group and the increased pressures on members in their working lives, the load has been gradually spread wider so that there are now 16 on the Executive Committee. The first Chairman served for five years and since then his successors have each held the office for three years. In 1997, in view of PRAG's rather more official status as a standard-setting body, the Executive Committee took up the often made suggestion that PRAG should become an incorporated entity and obtained the necessary consents at the AGM held in the November of that year for conversion to a private company limited by guarantee. The formalities were completed in time for the first meeting of the Executive Committee in its new role of PRAG's board of directors to take place on 10 February 1998.
Another suggestion that has just as often been put forward, namely that of changing the Group's name, so as to avoid the apparent restriction of "Accountants" has never gained sufficient support.
PRAG's 21st birthday celebration, on Sunday 13 July 1998, took the form of an evening function at the National Trust Claremont Landscape Garden, near Esher, Surrey. PRAG had a private marquee at an open air Rock and Roll concert featuring the hit band Showwaddywaddy. Over 50 members and guests enjoyed a buffet meal, as well as the music.
As the business world moved from postal correspondence to faxes and then to the Internet, PRAG has followed the trends, its website being inaugurated in 2000. That year also saw another innovation: the first PRAG Awards to promote best practice in pensions schemes' summary accounts and report. This has been repeated in later years.
The highlight of 2001 was the 25th Anniversary Lunch held at the Royal Over-Seas League on 20th June. As well as guests representing kindred professional organisations, no less than 22 former Executive Committee members accepted the Group's invitation to enjoy, in effect, a reunion. Altogether, some 150 people heard Graham Ward, who had just completed a year as President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, propose a toast to the Group, to which Mike Young, PRAG's founder and Honorary President, replied. Mike was presented with an inscribed piece of silver in appreciation of his 25 years service to the Group. After the June 2006 Summer meeting the 30th anniversary of the Group was marked by a drinks reception, when a number of former Ececutive members were welcomed, along with a good number of the present membership.
CHAIRMAN GENERAL SECRETARY
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J M Young |
1976-1981 |
J C Richards |
1976-1981 |
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J C Richards |
1981-1984 |
B R Barry |
1981-1984 |
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B R Barry |
1984-1987 |
Mrs G D Kaye |
1985-1988 |
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G R Henry |
1987-1990 |
O H Edwards |
1988-1990 |
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O H Edwards |
1990-1993 |
R I Hobley |
1990-2002 |
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G Peat |
1993-1996 |
D J Slade |
2002- |
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D J Slade |
1996-1999 |
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Mrs T Sienkiewicz |
1999-2002 |
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N G Barton |
2002-2004 |
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J Highfield |
2004- |
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TREASURER |
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RESEARCH SECRETARY |
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P R Allred |
1976-1979 |
M J Jones |
1984-1988 |
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S H Adams |
1979-1980 |
Mrs G D Kaye |
1988-1991 |
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A S Herbert |
1980-1983 |
G Peat |
1991-1993 |
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J P Williams |
1983-1984 |
Mrs T Sienkiewicz |
1993-1999 |
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I T Leader |
1984-1986 |
D J Slade |
1999-2002 |
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D J Slade |
1986-1996 |
P Butlin |
2002-2004 |
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J P Daborn |
1996-1999 |
P J B Dickinson |
2004- |
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J Highfield |
1999-2004 |
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P Butlin
N G Barton |
2004-2006
2006- |
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