AMIPP has its origins in our Trust's 1996 behaviour.  The trustees decided to use a fund built up with contributions from C-Planners for a purpose that could not benefit any C-Planner and they chose to keep the decision secret until well after it had been implemented.  Dozens of members were sufficiently outraged to want action, and a website was established to focus their concerns.  In 2001, AMIPP was established to formally control the website and communications.  Over the years the website has evolved to cover all aspects of the Trust and its interaction with all aspects of pensions.

 The last decade has seen an improvement in the Trust's attitudes, and the Trust has had some successes, although it still falls short on making the interests of scheme members' paramount.   It is impossible to be certain of AMIPP's influence on the improvement, but reasonable to suppose that some of the information provided in the web pages, newsletters, and message board was new to the trustees, and that the presence of AMIPP with its communication channel to the membership was an incentive to openness.

 The number of people registered to receive notification of AMIPP newsletters by direct email has remained steady at about 2500.   We do not know how many people read our website without registering and cannot know how many would register if we had the names and addresses of scheme members and could advertise AMIPP to them.   However, 2500 seems a reasonable figure for those taking an active interest in how their pension fund is run.    We can judge that the newsletter is well received, since it takes effort by recipients to make sure AMIPP has up-to-date email addresses.

 The "Keeping you informed" aspect of AMIPP has not been difficult to maintain, and there is no shortage of topics.  Pensions have received plenty of attention from the government and the media and the abundance of topics of interest is unlikely to drop away soon.   The government is keen on consultation and many firms and organisations choose to put opinions and data on the web.  While there are some subjects where AMIPP might initiate research if it had unlimited resources, a passive information gathering is currently proving adequate.  Even if there are no more major changes to the IBM UK schemes, there will be continued interest in the calculations for lump sums, transfer values and liabilities.  Member Nominated Directors will also be a recurring theme.

 The downside of stability is the risk of staleness.   The message board is less used than it was.  After 4407 messages, some of the reduction will be because things have already been said.  Some was due to the need to introduce a PIN system.   Some may be due to awkwardness when viewing; what is recent can be scattered.  While the current system was the best free software available when it was adopted, we should consider replacing it.

 In recent years,  AMIPP has not published anything about new complaints from individuals progressing through the Internal Dispute Resolution Process.  There are such complaints and AMIPP needs to consider the pros and cons of featuring such complaints in our communications.

 Although there is no problem in funding AMIPP by donations (a few of them via the web) the web-hosting service that we use is one of the more expensive ones.  There is a case for moving to one of the cheaper alternative providers now available.  A by-product of changing would be a natural opportunity to update web pages, although there will be judgements to be made about how far the structure of the site should be changed.

 In summary, AMIPP has an established, useful and appreciated niche role in IBM pension provision.  There are no significant threats to its continued operation but there are reasons to seek to refresh it.

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