Issue - meetings

63.1     The Committee considered the East Sussex Pension Fund 2017/18 Budget monitoring and 2018/19 Budget report.

63.2     The Committee RESOLVED to:

1) note the 2017/18 Budget Monitoring; and

2) approve the East Sussex Pension Fund Budget for 2018/19.

51.1.      The Board considered a report on the ESPF budget.

51.2.      The Chair asked why there had been an overspend of 58k on Orbis Finance Support Services. OO said that it was believed this was an incorrect figure and the revised version would be provided.

51.3.      The Chair asked what the £50k overspend on Legal Fees had been. OO said that this is the cost of legal fees spent on behalf of employers. The ESPF is discussing recovering these fees, for example, those spent on behalf of Sussex Courier, which has now gone into liquidation.

51.4.      OO said that £600k savings to management fees have been made for 2018/19 from transferring passive funds to UBS. He clarified, however, that the apparent decrease to the management fee of £4.2m is largely because the ESPF has tended to be invoiced directly by managers but from 1 April some funds will be with managers in the ACCESS pool. These managers will take their fees directly from the investments– as is currently the case for those managers holding private equity and infrastructure on behalf of ESPF. The Chair said that the Board will need to look at these unknown costs being drawn directly from the ACCESS funds in the future.

51.5.      OO confirmed that all information on ACCESS’ performance, management and investment manager charges will be provided to the Board and Committee. CIPFA is working with the Pool representatives and funds to develop a national approach to how this information is reported so that it can be compared across pooled funds. The Chair added that this makes it important that the 11 pension boards in the ACCESS area agree a standardised approach to receiving all of this information.

51.6.      AE asked how management fees are divided amongst the 11 ACCESS member funds. OO said that management fees are based on the proportion each fund puts into each sub-fund (each of which will be managed by a fund manager). The cost of setting up ACCESS was split equally amongst the 11 members.

51.7.      The Board RESOLVED to note the report.