Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Lisa Eglesfield. A full review of the Fire Pension Scheme’s discretions policy had been undertaken and approved by the Staff and Pensions Committee on 9 September. All members were now enrolled into the 2015 Firefighter Pension Scheme and it was anticipated the majority of any requests would relate to discretions for that scheme, although there may still have to be a need for discretions to be determined for other schemes. The scheme manager was the Executive Director for Resources; however it had been agreed that unless already delegated elsewhere, any initial decisions relating to discretions under the Fire Pension Scheme should be exercised at assistant Chief Fire Officer level with support from Human Resources. There were only a limited number of applications for the exercising of fire pension discretions. Any complaints relating to discretions would be handled by Watch, the Fire and Rescue Authority’s internal dispute resolution procedure.

Members were told that two new member fact sheets had been produced by the Local Government Association relating to the McCloud age discrimination scheme. The Fund was aiming to identify anyone that received a pension saving statement for annual allowance this year and provide them with targeted communications relating to McCloud. Updated guidance had also been issued for scheme managers in relation to contingent decisions regarding members that had opted out of the scheme, and those who would have opted to purchase more service.

The Home Office had confirmed there needed to be legislative changes to tax regulations relating to immediate choice for medial service statements. Work was taking place on this but any regulatory changes would not be made before 2025 at the earliest. The Treasury had also confirmed the regulatory changes, when made, would apply retrospectively to 1 October 2023. However it was confirmed that if the Fund acted before the legislation changed, it would then be in breach of that new legislation.

An updated calculator and guidance had been issued on 12 July relating to the Matthews project. 

The Warwickshire Fund had an approved business plan project plan for the pension dashboard projects and would work closely with the West Yorkshire Pension Fund to ensure delivery for members. This may involve some data cleansing work on data supplied from Warwickshire to the West Yorkshire Pension Fund.

Lisa Eglesfield reminded members the Pensions Regulator had issued a new code of practice in March that all pension funds should comply with. The Warwickshire Pension fund had contracted a pension actuary to review and report on compliance with the code. A report on the result of this review was expected to be available to the Board early in the next calendar year. Lisa Eglesfield said the Warwickshire Pension Fund had proactively tried to identify and address areas it was thought the Fund might be lacking in, such as holding training sessions on cybersecurity and scams.

Members noted the contents of the report.