“Also as the original board began to consider retirement from the workforce, we needed to figure out a way to keep them engaged as board members, so we started to remunerate directly.” Westscheme discloses the remuneration of its directors in its annual reports as far back as 1995, in which it is revealed that its two independent directors at the time were paid $10,500, in addition to a superannuation contribution of $1,050. “We realised long ago that people needed to be paid for the work that they do,” Rosario says. “And as the industry became more complex, experience on the board needed to extend beyond the layman.”

Despite this demand for knowledgeable boards, the APRA survey found that more than 90 per cent of funds do not explicitly require their directors to have formal education qualifications for the role of a trustee, and most (81 per cent) do not require the directors to have superannuation or investment experience. However, 68 per cent of the funds do require directors to have some formal trustee training. In spite of board requirements, 65 per cent of directors have university degrees and only 11 per cent of directors have no tertiary qualifications. In most cases (91 per cent) boards also have no requirements around the number of simultaneous directorships trustees can hold (the average is 3.5). Nor is there a limit to the number of years a director can serve on the board (current directors have served an average 5.3 years).

While industry bodies are increasing the regulation and governance requirements of boards, there remains little consistency between the funds in how they are selected, and for the foreseeable future it seems, in how they are remunerated.