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Report to: |
Governance Committee
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Date of meeting:
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19 July 2022 |
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By: |
Chief Finance Officer
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Title: |
East Sussex Pension Fund – Appointment of Local Pension Board Vice Chair and nomination of ACCESS Joint Committee observers
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Purpose: |
To approve the appointment of the Local Pension Board Vice Chair and note the nominations of observers to ACCESS Joint Committee meetings |
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Governance Committee is recommended to:
1) agree the appointment of Lynda Walker as the member representative Vice Chair of the Local Pension Board; and
2) note the nominations of Ray Martin and Neil Simpson as observer representatives for ACCESS Joint Committee meetings
1. Background
1.1 The Local Pension Board of the East Sussex Pension Fund was set up to meet the requirements of the Public Service Pension Act 2013, requiring Funds in the Local Government Pension Scheme to have a Pension Board whose duties are to provide advice to the Administering Authority. The Pension Board is not a decision-making body.
1.2 Under the East Sussex County Council Constitution, appointments to the Pension Board, and the allocation of material roles within it, are reserved to the Governance Committee.
1.3 The Pension Board is seeking the appointment of a member representative Vice Chair in order to comply with the requirements of its Terms of Reference due to the expired term of appointment of the previous Vice Chair.
2. Appointment of Vice Chair
2.1 Under the Terms of Reference for the Local Pension Board there is a requirement for it to have a permanent Independent Chair together with a Vice Chair drawn from both the Employer and Member Representatives. The Chair is currently in place, together with a Vice Chair from the Employer Representatives.
2.2 At the start of the year one of the existing member representative stood down at the end of their term. This Board member was the member representative Vice Chair. Since then, there has been a process run to appoint a new member representative, with approval of the appointment by the Governance Committee on 1 March 2022. As the Pension Board is now at the required size it has had the opportunity to consider who should take up the vacant post of Vice Chair, with Lynda Walker volunteering to take on this role.
3. Observers at ACCESS Joint Committee
3.1 As part of a Government initiative to improve the efficiency of investing member assets by the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) a number of investment pools were created to allow for efficiencies of scale. The East Sussex Pension Fund became a member of the ACCESS (A Collaboration of Central, Eastern and Southern Shires) Pool.
3.2 ACCESS is made up of 11 LGPS Administering Authorities, which are committed to working together to optimise benefits and efficiencies on behalf of their individual and collective stakeholders, operating with a clear set of objectives and principles that drives the decision making process.
3.3 The formal decision-making body within the ACCESS Pool is the ACCESS Joint Committee. The Joint Committee has been appointed by the 11 Administering Authorities under s102 of the Local Government Act 1972, with delegated authority from the Full Council of each Administering Authority to exercise specific functions in relation to the Pooling of Pension Fund assets.
3.4 As part of a recent review of the governance of ACCESS it has been determined that there is a need for greater role for Scheme Member representatives. The Joint Committee decided that this would be resolved by inviting two members of the Pension Boards from each of the 11 Administering Authorities to observe Joint Committee meetings in rotation. The Pension Board discussed who would be happy to take on this observer role, with Ray Martin (Chair of the Pension Board) and Neil Simpson (Member Representative) being the nominated observers, having suitable backgrounds in pension governance and finance.
4. Conclusion
4.1 The Governance Committee is asked to agree the appointment of Lynda Walker as member representative Vice Chair of the Local Pension Board; and note the nomination of Ray Martin and Neil Simpson as observers to the ACCESS Joint Committee.
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IAN GUTSELL |
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Chief Finance Officer |
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Contact Officer: |
Sian Kunert, Head of Pensions |
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Tel. No. |
01273 337177 |
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Email: |
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