9 Draft Annual Report and Accounts PDF 183 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Chris Norton, Strategy and Commissioning Manager (Treasury, Pension, Audit & Risk) presented the draft Annual Report including the draft annual accounts and confirmed the approval timeline to finalisation by Council in September 2020. The external audit of the accounts would be undertaken by Grant Thornton who would also be conducting a ‘hot review’ every few years. This meant that information would be shared with the Central Inspection Team, who would look at it from a different perspective, providing the benefit of additional scrutiny.
The Chair requested that the meeting consider high level comments only and any detailed comments or queries should be addressed by email to Chris Norton.
The Chair welcomed Rob Powell’s recognition of the Board in his statement.
The Chair asked for clarification on the long-term funding target of 19 years which seemed to be reasonable in comparison to other authorities and, subject to Covid-19, the direction of travel was right. Chris Norton advised that 19 years was the funding horizon – so it was planned to move from the current position to fully funded in 19 years. Additionally, it was necessary to factor in the probability of reaching a fully funded position within 19 years. The Board had heard that the Pension Fund had provided for the potential costs of McCloud and this had been accommodated by building a higher probability of reaching a fully funded position into the actuarial review in relation to the funding horizon assumptions. In terms of cash, this did not mean there was now a pot of money, but that it would be factored into employer contributions valuation.
With regard to the actuarial funding level quoted, the pre-pandemic figure in around December was 93.2%; this had reduced to 82.5% at out-turn rising at the end of April to around 85%. The fund valuation went down significantly in the lockdown and had rebounded to some extent since but was not back to where it was. Some comfort was also drawn from the notion that the valuation assumptions are considered to be relatively conservative.