Super industry association the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) has called on fund boards to provider more information to their members, as it launches a new set of governance guidelines.
The guidelines contain a raft of recommendations on board composition, risk management, education/training, member disclosure and trustee remuneration.
They are voluntary and principle-based and were developed for not-for-profit funds in response to the government's Stronger Super recommendation for an industry code of governance.
"There is much more to good governance than simply complying with the law," AIST president Gerard Noonan said.
"Good governance needs to permeate the fund's entire operations - from appropriate board composition and remuneration through to disclosure on the fund's environmental, social and corporate governance risks."
The guidelines, which were developed in partnership with Industry Funds Forum, will be launched at the CMSF 2011 conference on the Gold Coast today.
The guidelines contain a set of recommendations, including for boards to disclose their remuneration policies and individual director fees, to determine director terms based on individual performance rather than an arbitrary measurement of time served, to actively strive to achieve a minimum of 40 per cent of directors from each gender, to disclose policy for managing potential or actual related-party transactions and how those transactions are managed by the board, and to undergo a minimum of 30 hours of training and professional activities each year.
The AIST also announced it would launch a campaign to make people aware of the importance of lifting the superannuation guarantee (SG) from 9 per cent to 12 per cent.
"We are on the long-awaited threshold of seeing the SG lifted from 9 to 12 per cent, but it is not something that we can take for granted. As an industry we must gather broad industry support," it said.
The association has launched a campaign on Facebook and opened a website that features a petition in support of the increase.
