Issue - meetings

Members had previously undertaken training on investment beliefs and had subsequently been asked to complete a questionnaire which sought to align their views to a set of statements across purpose, strategy and structure, implementation and governance.  Discussion and debate on the questionnaire results in a recent workshop setting had resulted in the drafting of an updated set of Investment Beliefs which had been circulated to the Sub-Committee Members prior to this meeting. 

Some suggestions for changes to the wording of the statement had been received by email from Andrew Felton, Assistant Director – Finance particularly regarding the phrasing of belief 19 which implied that a passive option was required to be adopted before active management could be considered.  Philip Pearson explained that there was a grey area between passive and active management with passive management relating to investment in the index and active management requiring decisions about which stocks to invest in and the weights that applied.   The Committee also considered that it would be useful to define Responsible Investment prior to its first usage in the document and it was further suggested that the document should reference the UNPRI six principles for responsible investment.

Victoria Moffett confirmed that the investment beliefs should be reviewed before each investment strategy review.

Resolved

1.     That the Pension Fund Investment Sub Committee noted the tabled beliefs.

2.     That the Pension Fund Investment Sub Committee approved the updated Investment Beliefs subject to inclusion of the suggested changes (appended to these minutes).