Issue - meetings

Pension Fund Regulatory and Policy Update Report

Meeting: 09/12/2024 - Staff and Pensions Committee (Item 3)

3 Pension Fund Regulatory and Policy Update Report pdf icon PDF 107 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Alistair Wickens, Technical Specialist Pensions Fund Policy and Governance presented the report to the committee.

 

It was confirmed that Aon recently conducted a full review of the fund’s governance arrangements, including its compliance with The Pension Regulators new code of Practice.  The results will present a check against the new code of practice and how compliant the fund is. The full governance review will be presented at the March 2025 Staff and Pensions Committee meeting.

 

It was confirmed that section 4.2 of the report shows a summary of the report and that they have been separated into RAG ratings.  This is the first time that an analysis has been completed so is the first time that officers have been able to prioritise those areas in red.  A progress update will be provided at the next committee meeting.

 

In relation to conflict of interests it was confirmed that the fund will require all advisers to provide their own respective Conflicts of Interest policy on appointment. 

 

The new code of practice suggests that pension funds carry out their own risk assessments (ORA) for good practice.  It was noted that the code is not clear on what the assessment should entail and officers are waiting for further clarification.

 

It was confirmed that the new training policy was due to be presented at this meeting but following the compliance check completed by Aon, several recommendations were highlighted.  It was noted that the new training policy will be presented at the next committee meeting in March 2025.

 

In relation to the Regulatory Updates the following headline results were presented to the committee –

 

  • Total employer contribution payments of 10.5 billion (an increase of 24.6% from 2022/23)
  • Total Employee contribution payments of 3 billion (an increase of 8.3% from 2022/23)
  • 99,505 retirements (an increase of 6.3% on the number of retirements from 2022/23)
  • Across all Funds total expenditure was 17.1 billion (an increase of 11.9%) and total income was 20.7 billion (an increase of 19.3%)
  •  

The full LGPS Statistics for England and Wales 2023/2024 report can be found here.

 

It was confirmed that the Office of National statistics announced the CPI rate of inflation for September 2024 as 1.7%.

 

It was confirmed that the LGA conference will be taking place in January 2025 and if members are interested in attending please contact Alistair Wickens.

 

Councillor Mandy Tromans moved that the recommendation be accepted and was seconded by Councillor Brian Hammersley.  This was supported unanimously by the Committee.

 

Resolved

 

That the Committee notes and comments on the updates contained within this report.