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There is no summary of this meeting yet. One is written once the council publishes the minutes. The agenda and papers are below.
1.1 Apologies were received from Ms. Hayden.
2.1 Board Members confirmed the following declarations of personal interest: Board Member In Receipt of Pension Contributor Bob Campbell Self Steve Harford Self Sister Rhian Hayden Mother Self and sister Diane Morley Self Self Ian Reese Self Clive Rogers Self Meirion Rushworth Self Jane Waters Brother Self Anthea Wellington Self and husband Daughter John Wright Self and wife Daughter 2.2 The CLO left the meeting.
3.1 It was agreed that the minutes were an accurate record of the meeting.
4.1 Regarding action 4, there had been an issue with adding the Risk Register to the agenda. This would be addressed at the next meeting. 4.2 In respect of Action 5, a verbal update was given to Board members and the action was noted as completed. 4.3 The Pension Board noted the Action Sheet.
5.1 The Pension Board considered the draft minutes of the Pensions Committee held on 18 March 2024. 5.2 The Pension Board agreed to note the draft minutes.
6.1 The PM outlined the report and provided an update on the administrative services provided by the Pensions Section and highlighted several areas of current activity and development. 6.2 The report gave an overview of the work undertaken by the Pension Section in the 23/24 financial year. The PM confirmed the following points: · The data surrounding transfers was considerably lower than previously. There were a number of transfers on hold due to the McCloud remedy. These statistics were likely to improve by the next report. · The introduction of the McCloud remedy had caused processes to become longer and added additional pressures to the team. · The number of members registered for My Pensions Online was expected to increase when the annual benefit statement was sent out to all members of the Greater Gwent Pension Fund in August 2024. · The table on page 38 confirmed that the case that had been pending a decision by the Pension Ombudsman had since been closed in favour of the Fund. · The deadline for the March submittals in respect of year end was 30th April 2024. There had been 35 received and these showed a good overall position of the Fund. · The McCloud remedy had been switched on in the pension administration system on 4th March 2024. This ensured that all cases would include the McCloud calculation. · The Pension Regulator’s General Code of Practice came into force on the 28 March 2024. The Code consolidated the previous 10 Pension Regulator Codes into a single code and included new topics such as Cyber Security and Pension Scams. · The deadline given for the public service pension schemes to go live with the Pension Dashboard was the 31st October 2025. There would be work undertaken to cleanse records prior to the “go live” date. 6.3 Following questions from the Board, the PM made the following points: · The opt out figure within the report represented all salaries. · The average time that contributors remained within the 50/50 section of the LGPS would be shared with the Board after the meeting. · The new pension dashboard would provide a way to reconnect with members of the Fund. It was not felt that the dashboard would lead to more members of the Fund choosing to transfer out. · There was a robust procedure in place in respect of Transfers Out to ensure the safety of each person’s pension. • The Fund has begun to consider the requirement of the General Code of Practice and a follow-on report will be presented to Pension Board for awareness • The McCloud Remedy would also be calculated and paid to current pensioners. However, the Pensions Section was awaiting guidance in order to correctly calculate the interest owed. • There would be consideration of Local Pension Board training on the McCloud Remedy and new Code of Conduct. • My Pensions Online would continue to function alongside the new pension dashboard as it was specific to the Greater Gwent Pension Fund. 6.4 The Local Pension Board noted the report.
7.1 The Chair of the Local Pension Board outlined the draft report and provided an update of the activities and performance of the Board during 2023/24. There was a suggestion by Board members to record and document within the annual report the time spent serving it during the year. It was felt that this would be helpful for scheme members to see the time and effort put in by the Local Pension Board from a value for money perspective. 7.2 Report Members of the Local Pension Board: i. considered the report and commented as appropriate; and ii. approved the inclusion of the Local Pension Board annual report in the Fund’s annual report and accounts for 2023/24.
8.1 The HoP outlined the report and provided an update on the draft Business Plan on behalf of the Pension Fund covering the three-year period 2024-2027 ahead of approval at Pension Committee in June 2024. 8.2 The draft report showed a snapshot of the position of the Fund at the end of March 2024 which showed a milestone of over 4 billion in assets. The commitments of the Fund were set out within the report. The three strategic objectives identified were sustainability, accessible and informed, and efficient and compliant and page 59 showed the strategic work undertaken to adhere to these objectives. These objectives reflected the full pension section team and their values. 8.3 The “Business as usual” section of the report set out the core activity of the Fund. The full budget had been set out as income versus expenditure and gave a clear picture of the current positive position of the Fund. The operational expenses on page 70 of the report showed the disclosures against Investment Management, Administration and Oversight & Governance. It was highlighted that whilst the Investment Management cost was a large amount, this was in respect of the management of an over £4 billion fund. 8.4 The Board suggested several amendments to the draft report that were taken into consideration by Officers. 8.5 Members of the Local Pension Board noted the contents of the report.
9.1 The HoP outlined the report and provided an update on the on the internal audit carried out on the Greater Gwent (Torfaen) Pension Fund. 9.2 The Pension Fund governance audit started prior to Christmas and was completed in January 2024. The previous audit had been completed in 2020 with the outcome of “Substantial”. There had since been improvements made in line with the recommendations made by the auditor during the previous audit. As a result of these improvements and the hard work of the Pension section, the new internal audit had been given the outcome “full assurance.” 9.3 The Board noted that this was an excellent report and commended the Pension section on the audit outcome. 9.4 Members of the Local Pension Board noted the content of the report.
10.1 The HoP outlined the report and provided an update on the Pension Fund annual budget for the financial year 2024/25. This was a report that had been taken to Pension Committee in March and was for information and noting by the Local Pension Board. 10.2 The key assumptions, on page 95 of the report, were driven by expert advice from independent advisors and the actuary. No material assumptions were made regarding changes in the upcoming year’s strategy due to uncertainty of what this may look like. Instead, the forecast was made considering the current position of assets. 10.3 Page 96 set out the Cash Investment Strategy 2024/2025. The flexibility of this strategy was increased following Pension Committee approval in November 2023 due to two previously unforeseen events leading to two of the Fund’s investment mandates being liquidated and cash returned. Whilst the held cash was still higher than it had been historically, some of these reserves had now been re-deployed into long-term assets per the Fund’s strategic allocation. 10.4 Page 97 showed the forecast income and expenditure for 2024/2025. This included equalisation receipts and payments, which were interest and entry costs into new investments. Entering an investment early incurred higher financial costs and risk, resulting in interest payments to the investor. Entering an investment late meant that other investors were paid for their evaluation uplift. There was a positive forecast of 64 million for the 24/25 financial year. 10.4 Following questions from the Board the HoP confirmed the following: · Public sector bodies were required to report their income in brackets as seen in the report. · The level of maturity of scheme membership was driven by factors outside of the control of the Fund. The Fund’s actuary are able to make assumptions about future maturity profiles based on national and local data produced by ClubVita. The impact of a maturing membership could have an adverse impact on cash flow. If the scheme matured to the stage where outgoings could not be met by contribution income then investments would be sold or converted to income producing to ensure obligations to scheme members is maintained. · Actuarial advisors’ guidance was crucial to the Fund’s preparation for a maturing membership of the pension scheme. .
11.1 The PM outlined the report and provided an update already undertaken by members of the Pension Board to aid consideration of future training requirements. 11.2 There was consideration for a training session on Cyber Security to be held after the June Pension Committee meeting. This would be for both the Local Pension Board and Pension Committee to attend. 11.3 The requested training on the McCloud Remedy and the new Code of Conduct would be added to the existing training timetable. 11.4 Members of the Local Pension Board commented on the draft annual training programme (appendix 3) for 2024/25 and proposed any further training courses/development they wished to be included for the year ahead.
12.1 The date of the next meeting was noted.
13.1 The Board agreed to the exclusion of the press and public from the meeting as presentations and meeting papers were not for publication because in accordance with paragraphs 12 and 14 of part 4 of Schedule 12a of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Access to Information Variation Order Wales 2007), it contained information about a particular individual and information relating to the financial and business affairs of particular persons including the Council and in all the circumstances of the case the public interest in maintaining the exemptions outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.
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