Our Partners 

Our Partners 

 
Members receive expert advice from our supporting partners 
 
 
Stay up-to-date with the latest pensions developments through our expert partners at Charities Pensions Club, saving your charity time and money. Our partners regularly host events for our members, focusing on issues relevant to the charity sector. 
 
 

2025 PARTNERS  

 
Legal Partner 
 
Actuarial Partner 
Professional Trustee Partner 
We are pleased to annouce that Arc Pensions Law will continue as the exclusive legal partner to the Charities Pensions Club. 
 
Arc Pensions Law is a national specialist pension law firm based in London and Leeds and brings together a wealth of pension industry knowledge. Its team, including nine partners, have over 250 years’ combined experience of advising on all aspects of pensions law and practice including numerous charities. 
 
"We pride ourselves on providing clear, tailored and pragmatic advice. Our excellent mix of technical skills and commercial common sense, alongside our collaborative approach, enables our experienced, yet down-to-earth, team to provide tailored and solution-driven advice." 
Kate Payne 
Partner 
kate.payne@arcpensionslaw.com | 0113 467 8791 | 07971 142 385 
 
Kate has many years of experience advising trustees and employers in relation to all aspects of pensions law.  She has supported a number of charities involved in the pensions aspects of charity restructuring when participating in the Local Government Pension Scheme as well as advising a charity with a “by analogy scheme”. More recently she has advised on the pensions aspects of two merger projects for two different charity groups. 
 
Kate is consistently ranked Band 1 for pensions in the Chambers UK Guide and continues to be recognised in The Legal 500 UK as a ‘Leading Individual’ for Pensions (Leeds). 
Beth Brown 
Partner 
beth.brown@arcpensionslaw.com | 020 7653 8962 | 07435 556142 
 
Beth advises trustees and employers on all aspects of pensions law, including governance.  She has also been seconded to the Pension Protection Fund. 
 
Beth plays an active role in the pensions industry, chairing the PMI’s Award in Pensions Trusteeship Committee, and regularly contributes to pensions-related publications and conferences. Beth is ranked as a recommended lawyer in The Legal 500 UK 2025.  
We are delighted to welcome First Actuarial as the CPC Actuarial Partner for 2025.  
 
First Actuarial helps charities strike the right balance between pension benefits and charitable aims. They work with charities of all sizes, supporting both DB and DC pension arrangements, as well as multi-employer DB schemes.  
 
They can provide investment advice for charitable endowments. They are the leading provider of pensions advice to the not-for-profit sector and we are delighted to have them be part of our club. 
Dale Walmsley 
Partner 
dale.walmsley@firstactuarial.co.uk | 0161 348 7464 | 07361 361 312 
 
Dale is a partner and is the Head of our Manchester office. He is a qualified actuary with 25 years’ pensions experience and Head of First Actuarial’s Public Service Pensions group. 
 
Dale provides support and guidance to many employers in the not-for-profit space, helping them address the cost and risk challenges often associated with their pension schemes. Dale always seeks solutions with an employee focus and considers staff engagement as crucial. 
Steve Deverell-Smith 
Actuary 
steve.deverell-smith@firstactuarial.co.uk | 0161 348 7400 
 
Steve is an actuary with over 20 years’ pensions experience and recently joined First Actuarial from WTW. Steve is the Head of First Actuarial’s Employer Services Team and has extensive experience advising sponsors of schemes ranging from £10m to over £2.5bn in size, including several in the not-for-profit sector. 
 
Steve is also a member of First Actuarial’s DB ‘run-on’ strategy group, and is passionate about ensuring sponsors and trustees select the right endgame(s) for their circumstances. 
 
Steve’s experience includes leading complex funding and strategy negotiations, designing and executing sponsor-led pension strategies, supporting sponsors navigate pensions-related M&A issues and supporting his clients with their pension cost accounting disclosures. 
We are delighted to annouce that Pi Partnership will continue as the CPC's exclusive Professional Trustee partner for the second year. 
 
Pi Partnership is an independent, employee owned organisation that provides a supportive environment to enable our team of pension professionals to deliver the very highest standards of services. We provide independent scheme secretaries and governance specialist that sit alongside our professional trustees. 
 
Our professional trustee team are drawn from a number of different backgrounds including actuarial, legal, investment, HR and business management so are able to support clients with whatever challenges they may face in delivering the promised benefits to their members. 
Lynn Pointon 
Head of Trusteeship 
l.pointon@pipg.co.uk | 0208 879 6500 | 07718 480 175 
 
Lynn leads the trustee team at Pi and is a member of the Executive Management Team and a Director of Pi’s Corporate Trustee Board. She is therefore instrumental in the development of Pi’s Trustee proposition, the integration of Knowa, the award winning technology company into our governance processes and the implementation of our specialist scheme buyout service. 
 
An experienced pension professional, having spent over 30 years in the pensions industry, Lynn is a well known industry figure. A Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, Lynn was initially engaged as a Scheme Actuary where she supported trustee boards through a wide range of significant events such as funding negotiations, scheme mergers, corporate transactions and insolvency situations. 
Amanda Burden  
Director and Governance Specialist 
aburden@pipg.co.uk | 0208 879 6500 | 07580 772 157 
 
Amanda is a Board Director of Pi Partnership and leads the development of Pi’s services. She works closely with clients, the Pi team and professional advisers to ensure all of Pi’s services meet the changing needs of the pension market and deliver clear value to Pi’s clients. 
 
Amanda has over twenty-five years’ experience in the pensions industry and, provides specialist project management for clients on a range of services, including adviser selection and review, trustee board assessment and governance design. As well as being a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute (PMI) and Chair of the PMI London Group, Amanda holds PMI certificates in Pensions Automatic Enrolment and DC Governance, was a past Prince2 practitioner and is a Certified Risk Management Practitioner. 
Join as a Partner 
If your organisation is interested in becoming a partner of the CPC contact us today for more information.