The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has received an overwhelming response to its call for nominations for members to join its two new policy-making councils.

Due to the very strong interest from the pensions industry, the NAPF is holding a ballot that will close on 17th September 2013. There are two vacancies for the Defined Benefit (DB) Council and three for the Defined Contribution (DC) Council. The UK’s leading pensions body received 13 nominations for the DB Council and 23 nominations for the DC Council. This latest news follows the announcement that Robert Brown of Towers Watson has been elected Chair of the DB Council and Lesley Williams of Whitbread Chair of the DC Council. Both take up their new positions at the NAPF Annual General Meeting on 18 October 2013.

Joanne Segars, Chief Executive, NAPF, said: “This is a particularly exciting year for the NAPF. We welcome Ruston Smith as our new Chairman in October and recently announced the Chairs of our new DB and DC Councils. We have received a tremendous response for the vacant positions on the DC and DB Councils and are delighted with the quality of the candidates. With such high calibre nominees, I am confident that whoever is elected will make a major contribution to the direction and content of the NAPF’s public policy on DB or DC pensions on behalf of our 1,300 NAPF members.”

The NAPF members voted to revamp its two main policy-making Councils by replacing the Retirement Policy Council and Investment Policy Council with the DB and DC Councils last year. This restructure will better reflect the changes in the pensions landscape and create a clearer focus on DC pensions in the NAPF’s policy work. Each of the new Councils will have 15 members, who will all be leading figures from the pensions industry.