Â鶹Éç

About the trustees

The Trustee of the Scheme is a company, Â鶹Éç Pension Trust Ltd. This is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Â鶹Éç and exists only for the purpose of acting as sole corporate trustee of the Scheme.

The Trustee company acts through its Board of Directors. The directors are referred to as ‘the Trustee Directors’ and the Board of Directors as ‘the Trustee Board’. There are eleven Trustee Directors:

• four are appointed by the Â鶹Éç;
• four are appointed by Scheme members. Three of these are elected by the active members and those deferred members employed by participating employers. One is elected by the pensioners. All four serve for six years;
• three are independent Trustee Directors, appointed by other Trustee Directors with the agreement of the Â鶹Éç Board.

There is a more detailed Governance Statement available in the documents section.

The Trustee is responsible for stewardship of the Scheme’s assets. Its main objective is to ensure that all beneficiaries receive the benefits to which they are entitled under the Trust Deed and Rules.

Find out who the Trustees are and read their biographies below.

The fund

Pension contributions are paid into a trust fund and invested by the Trustee to produce income from which benefits are paid. The Fund is separate from the finances of the Â鶹Éç and participating employers. It is used to provide benefits for the Scheme’s members and their dependants.

The Scheme is registered for tax purposes with HM Revenue & Customs.

Trust Deed and Rules 

The Trustees administer the Scheme and pay benefits in accordance with the Trust Deed and Rules. You can get a copy from the documents section.

Annual Report

Copies are available from the documents section.

Where can I get help?

You can find lots of help and advice in our help section.

Trustee Biographies

Catherine Claydon

Catherine is a Non-Executive Director of the new British Steel Pension Scheme. Previous appointments have included Deputy Chair of the BT Pension Scheme Trustees Limited, independent member of the Unilever UK Pension Fund Investment Committee and Non Executive Directorships at Barclays UK Retirement Fund (Chair of Investment Advisory Group), Dunedin Income Growth Investment Trust (Senior Independent Director), the London Metal Exchange Limited, Hermes Fund Managers Ltd and the Witan Investment Trust (Chairman Remuneration Committee).

Catherine Claydon’s professional background includes more than 20 years’ experience in investment banking in the UK, with 15 years spent at Goldman Sachs, latterly as a Managing Director in the Pension Advisory Group. Her background included multi-asset class derivatives and commodities, where she was the Managing Director responsible for the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index.

Catherine is a PMI accredited professional Trustee.

Ben Cryer

Ben Cryer is an award-winning Principal Technical Operator working across National and Regional news, based in Leeds. He began his career at the Â鶹Éç in 2000 as a Radio and Television Journalist, before transitioning into camerawork eight years later. Since then, he has covered major news events and sport across the North of England and has filmed and edited network documentaries and investigations. Alongside his broadcast work, Ben is a Trade Union representative for BECTU and serves on the National Joint Council, negotiating with the Â鶹Éç at a national level. He is also a Trustee Director of the Â鶹Éç Pension Scheme and a member of the Governance Committee for the Â鶹Éç Lifeplan pension.

Emma Osborne

Emma Osborne has a number of non-executive and trustee roles, including as a trustee at the People’s Pension master trust and the Church of England pension schemes. Her previous executive role was mainly in institutional investment management and included being head of quantitative investment management and derivatives at Credit Suisse Asset Management and Chief Investment Officer for the international assets of the Chubb Corporation, a US insurance company, where she was also chair of the UK company’s pension scheme. Emma is a PMI accredited professional Trustee.

Richard Collings

Richard Collings is an investigative journalist who has worked in newspapers, radio and television for the past four decades. At the Â鶹Éç he presented on the World Service, Radio 4 & 5Live, held senior management roles at Business Programmes, worked as a producer at Newsnight with some of the Â鶹Éç’s top talent and also made documentaries. One of these was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Richard is a committee member and Treasurer of the Â鶹Éç Pensioners’ Association. He has been co-chair of Â鶹Éç Ability which represents the Â鶹Éç’s disabled workers and is an advocate of diversity and inclusion. Richard is a former chair of a London housing co-operative.

Martyn Freeman

As Chief Operating Officer of Â鶹Éç Studios, Martyn is responsible for overseeing the company’s legal and business affairs, global operations, compliance and risk, in addition to technology, transformation and property.

Appointed Chief Operating Officer in December 2021, Martyn was previously General Counsel for Â鶹Éç Studios, having held the role for Â鶹Éç Worldwide since 2011. Prior to this he led Â鶹Éç Worldwide's Legal and Business Affairs teams, as Group Head and then Director. Martyn has also worked in a variety of roles across the Â鶹Éç, including as Head of Business Affairs, Radio & Music, Factual & Learning and News.

David Jordan

David is the Â鶹Éç’s Director, Editorial Policy & Standards. He is responsible for compiling the Â鶹Éç’s Editorial Guidelines and manages the editorial policy team as well as the Â鶹Éç’s complaints system and the Pronunciation Unit. David joined the Â鶹Éç in 1988 to work on political and current affairs programmes for television and radio and edited On The Record, Panorama, The Westminster Hour and The Week in Westminster.  He has also been the Â鶹Éç’s Chief Adviser, Politics.   

David is Secretary General of Public Broadcasters’ International, the Executive Board of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen.

Peter Johnston

Peter Johnston was appointed Director Editorial Complaints and Reviews in April 2023, following on from his role in leading the implementation of the Serota Review/DG Impartiality plan. Prior to that he had been Director of Â鶹Éç Northern Ireland since 2006 with overall editorial and managerial responsibility for the Â鶹Éç in Northern Ireland. Peter joined Â鶹Éç Northern Ireland in 1994 working in audience research and has held roles as Head of Marketing and Development, Head of New Media for Â鶹Éç Nations and Regions, and Head of Broadcasting.

Peter sat on the Â鶹Éç Nations Board and on the Â鶹Éç Northern Ireland Committee, which is responsible for advising the Â鶹Éç Board on the Â鶹Éç’s performance and services for audiences in Northern Ireland, and for overseeing the public engagement strategy. He also sat on the Â鶹Éç’s Digital Leadership Group representing the Nations Division and attends the Editorial Standards Committee of the Â鶹Éç Board.

Kristina Block

Kristina Block is the Commissioning Editor for World News Content and a deputy to the Â鶹Éç’s Foreign Editor. She is responsible for commissioning high impact, original content from Â鶹Éç News teams around the world as well as planning news coverage and deployments on international stories. She started her Â鶹Éç career in global business programmes, oversaw the planning for the Rio Olympics as well as other major events, before leading the planning teams for Â鶹Éç World News and World Service Radio. Prior to joining the Â鶹Éç in 2006 Kristina was a business correspondent and news editor for international news channel DW-TV in her native Germany.

Shirley Cameron

Shirley Cameron is a Chartered Accountant and Treasurer and is currently Director of Revenue and Customer Management at the British Broadcasting Corporation where she leads the Â鶹Éç’s Licence Fee Collection activities.

In a 28 year career at the Â鶹Éç, Shirley has held a wide range of finance, project and management roles across all divisions of the organisation including 7 years as Â鶹Éç Group Financial Controller.

She completed her Chartered Accountancy training with KPMG in London before a secondment to the firm’s Melbourne office. Her professional experience covers financial accounting, treasury, audit, tax, mergers & acquisitions and corporate governance.

Shirley is a Trustee of Â鶹Éç Media Action and Honorary Treasurer of the Hansard Society.

Bridget Houghton

Bridget is an independent professional trustee with roles as a non-executive trustee director for the John Lewis Partnership Trust for Pensions and the Barclays Bank UK Retirement Fund. Her previous executive roles have given her extensive experience in the pensions industry. She worked for Barclays for 15 years, until 2023, as Global Head of Pensions and CEO to the UK pension funds. Prior to this she had roles in pensions management, HR and actuarial consultancy with JPMorgan and Mercer. She is a qualified actuary and a PMI Accredited Professional Trustee.