In March 2025, Pensions UK, in collaboration with the FCA established, industry-led Vote Reporting Group (VRG) developed a new, standardised vote reporting template to support improved transparency, consistency, and engagement between asset managers and asset owners.
Pensions UK has now published detailed, technical guidance. This technical guidance builds on the FAQs document which was published alongside the new vote reporting template in March 2025 (under our previous name). It has been developed to support users of the template, particularly asset managers, proxy advisers, and asset owners, by providing detailed explanations for each field within the template. It offers clarity on data expectations, formatting, and interpretation, and is intended to maximise the template’s usability and uptake.
The final version of the new template, developed by the industry, for the industry, incorporates key elements of the previous Pensions UK template, integrating the industry developed VRG template at its core. It is worth noting that there have been some changes made to the Pensions UK template from the version published in March and so we encourage all users to review the template and technical guidance in full.
Click the image to download the template. Please note that the FAQs were produced under our previous name.
Further Information
Details of the new template
The original PLSA template was created to efficiently help trustees meet their new reporting requirements in terms of their managers’ wider voting behaviour and provide information on a range of most significant votes (MSVs). It achieved good take-up but was not intended to provide standardised voting information.
The new template has been developed to ‘fill the gap’, building upon USA SEC NP-X reporting to provide this information, in response to the growing recognition across the industry that: asset managers were being asked for this information cut in a variety of different ways to suit different clients and their advisers, and asset owners were still not getting the consistent, comparable information across all their managers’ voting activity.
The work of the VRG will be at the heart of the new template with relevant elements of the previous Pensions UK template complimenting it where it has been deemed necessary. We are confident that the new template provides a comprehensive, streamlined and simplified vote reporting template that:
- Improves vote reporting quality and consistency.
- Reduces ongoing / overall reporting costs for asset managers.
- Increases transparency and comparability for clients.
- Enhances engagement and market discipline.
The template supports sustainable finance goals, regulatory developments, and ensures greater alignment between asset owners’ and asset managers’ stewardship objectives and activities. It also supports FCA objectives on market integrity and growth by improving voting transparency, accountability, and investor confidence.
FAQs document
In March 2025, we produced an FAQs document which addresses key challenges that arose through industry engagement during the development of the new Pensions UK vote reporting template. While some useful information remains in the FAQs, it was always intended to provide additional support in the interim period between the template launching and the more detailed technical guidance being published. Now that the technical guidance has been published, we expect this to provide much more clarity on the purpose of, and how to use, the new Pensions UK template.