Programme Content
The Pensions Technical Unit is part of the Benefits practice but the programme content differs significantly from that of the general Benefits graduate scheme due to the different nature of the work undertaken within this specialist team.
Joiners to the team can expect their first two years to look a bit like this:
First year
- Acclimatisation - Familiarisation with activities of PTU and with legislative framework governing pension schemes
- Attend graduate induction courses
- Acquire knowledge by reading PTU summaries and responses to enquiries and by participating in PTU and Watson Wyatt internal meetings
- Shadow and summarise progress of relevant Bills through Parliament
- Participate in production of Benefits publications, specifically Pensions News Flash, Focus and Filter and the Budget and Pre-Budget Briefings
- Assist in production of the UK section of the Benefits Report (annually, each February)
- Participate in ad-hoc project teams, for example the Brand Refresh project creating new templates for publications in accordance with global guidelines
- Act as 'first-line reviewer' of material on the Intranet
- Participate in development of Intranet
- Participate in meetings within PTU, with consultants and attend as non-chargeable note taker at meetings with clients and Government officials.
Second year
Consolidation - Development of technical knowledge in one or more subject areas
- As above, plus
- Study for Retirement Provision Certificate (module 1 of APMI)
- Assist with writing of Intranet headlines
- Shadow main researcher on a particular technical topic
- Prepare materials for professional body committee meetings
- Review organisation of PTU reference material filing system with a view to aligning it more closely to the Intranet structure and also identifying correspondence that could be scanned and shared via the Intranet
