Issue - meetings

Lisa Eglesfield said that, since the report had been published, the 2024 Scheme Return had been requested by the Pensions Regulator. Governance data was being collected and its quality assessed before being sent on to the West Yorkshire Pension Fund. This process needed to be completed by the deadline of 18 November.

A review of the Fund’s compliance with the Pensions Regulator’s Code of Compliance was taking place, which looked at the governance arrangements of the Fire and Rescue Pension Fund alongside the main Warwickshire Fund. This was being conducted by AON and would help to generate an action log that would help to ensure future compliance. Responding to a question from the Chair, Lisa Eglesfield explained the Code of Compliance had brought together different codes into a single document and the Fund had already identified areas the Code of Compliance would look at. For example, protections relating to pension transfers had now been brought in. No areas of concern had therefore been raised. Further updates on this would be raised at future meetings.

The Age Discrimination Remedy had now been revised so affected members could have their contribution amounts calculated using the net amount, as the previous method of using gross was ruled to be unfair. Work was now taking place to update remediable service statements accordingly. Helen Scargill said she did not believe this would unduly affect the required timescales for the RSSs to be submitted.

New guidance had been issued by HMRC’s Governance Actuary Department regarding red cases and how some of them should be processed. Lisa Eglesfield said however that the guidance did not make it clear how all red cases should be processed. The Warwickshire Fund had written to the LGA to request advice on how to proceed. This had been acknowledged but the advice had yet to be received. The deadline for processing cases was 31 March 2025; those that were not would need to be reported to the Pensions Regulator. However there were only a small number of red cases that needed to be dealt with.

Regarding the Second Retained Exercise, a number of outstanding points had been clarified by HMRC since the last Board meeting. Additional lump sums had been confirmed as being authorised payments so the previous unauthorised payment charge payable by the pension holder and the scheme sanction charge payable by the employer no longer applied. Any arrears would be charged using the current tax rates, which meant some people may be in the higher bracket. Lisa Eglesfield said for now Funds had to follow the guidance, but it was anticipated there may be further legal challenges in future.

Information relating to the 2024 Firefighter Pension Scheme valuation needed to be returned no later than 1 December. A slightly different set of data had been requested compared to previous years. This exercise would be completed on the Warwickshire Fund’s behalf by the West Yorkshire Pension Fund. Lisa Eglesfield said employer contributions increased by around eight per cent at the last  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3