Agenda and minutes

To appoint a Chair of the Board for three years for the first term of the Board from 2015 to 2018.

RESOLVED –

THAT Councillor Phil Jones be appointed as chair of the Board from 2015 to 2018.

There were no apologies.

It was noted that some Members of the Pension Board were also members of the pension scheme. They were not however, required to declare this as an interest.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no announcements.

There was no urgent business.

Report of the Director of Finance

The Public Services Pensions Act 2013 requires the establishment of local pension boards for each Local Government Pension Fund. Each administering authority was required to establish a Pensions Board no later than 1 April 2015.

This inaugural report introduces the terms of reference for agreement by the Pension Board and a number of other important matters to fulfil requirements imposed on the Board and its members.

Consideration was given to a report of the Director of Finance.

The Head of Treasury and Financial Transactions presented the report and highlighted the key points.

With regard to paragraph 1.13-1.15 of the report, it was noted that the regulations in particular required each administering authority to be satisfied that any person to be appointed as a member of a local pension board does not have a conflict of interest. The Pensions Regulator has issued a Code of Practice entitled “Governance and Administration of Public Service Pension Schemes” which states that it is “highly likely that pension board members will have dual interests and responsibilities?. They were not however, required to declare this as a conflict of interest under the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 as the 2013 Act specifies that a conflict does not include a financial or other interest arising merely by virtue of membership of the LGPS (or any connected scheme).This has therefore been reflected in the terms of reference, including the need for Board members to sign a written ‘undertaking’ disclosing all dual interests and responsibilities which have the potential to become conflicts of interest.  It was noted that officers would be sending out the written undertaking for Board members to sign in a couple of weeks.

            ACTION BY: Director of Finance

The guidance relating to this is very broad and recommendation 2 of the report is proposing that officers prepare a further more specific Conflicts Policy based on current guidance. 

The Terms of Reference of the Pensions Board was set out at Appendix A of the report.  The Chair referred to the second core function of the Board in paragraph 2 (page 12) which was to ensure the effective and efficient governance and administration of the Scheme and asked how the Board could undertake to (b) “Monitor investment costs including custodian and transaction costs.” The Head of Treasury and Financial Transactions replied that the details of costs including those paid to advisors would be included in the annual report to the Board. If the Board had concerns about the level of costs, it could send a reference to the Pensions Committee asking for the justification. The Board had a compliance role and was not a decision making body. If the Board was still unhappy it could ultimately refer its concerns to the Pensions Regulator.

There would be two Board meetings a year and it was proposed that these would be held in March and October each year. The next meeting was scheduled to be held meeting on 7^th October 2015. The Head of Treasury and Financial Transactions advised Members that it was intended to present to those meetings a summary paper detailing the half year Pension Committee reports for the Board’s comments.

ACTION BY: Director of Finance

The Pension Board member role description was set out at Appendix B for ease of reference.

Appendix C contained a summary of some of the key areas of law relating to pensions generally and the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The next meeting of the Pensions Board will be held on Wednesday 7^th October 2015

It was noted that the next meeting of the Pensions Board will be held on Wednesday, 7^th October 2015.

There was no urgent business.