Agenda item

64.1     The Board considered a report providing an update on various governance workstreams completed and changes affecting LGPS and the ESPF.

Membership of the Pension Board

64.2     Michael Burton (MB) set out the Board membership changes and welcomed the new members.

64.3     MB set out the requirement to take a report to the Governance Committee to recommend a Vice Chair. Cllr Wilson (AW) confirmed his nomination as an Employer Representative and Neil Simpson (NS) confirmed his nomination at the Employee Representative.

Working groups

64.4     The Board considered whether the McCloud Working Group should remain as a separate group and were advised by officers that its work could now be absorbed into the Administration Working Group. Board agreed this approach would be desirable.

64.5     Tim Oliver (TO) and Zoe O’Sullivan (ZO) confirmed they would join the Administration Working Group

64.6     Ray Martin (RM) outlined the context of the recommendation to dissolve the Communications Group, this was agreed by the Board.

ACCESS

64.7     NS and RM provided an update on the most recent ACCESS meeting, they agreed that it demonstrated that the ACCESS Joint Committee is well governed and that the current focus is the Government’s review of the pooling arrangements.

64.8     NS referenced the governance discussion about ACCESS at the Board meeting of 30 May and asked whether it was possible for the ESCC Monitoring Officer to express a view on the ACCESS arrangements.

64.9     SK confirmed that an independent review has been undertaken to look at the governance arrangements and there are recommendations from that which would be shared with the Board.

64.10   RM, NS and Cllr Fox (GF) agreed to meet with SK to give input into the Governance review and the recommendations.

64.11   AW asked about mechanisms to raise concerns about ACCESS governance arrangements.

64.12 SK confirmed that the Board can feed back to ACCESS and officers can report issues however SK reminded Board Members that there are 11 Local Authorities involved in ACCESS and ESPF concerns may not always be shared by other members and therefore it can be challenging to reach consensus on issues. 

64.13   SK confirmed that ACCESS has a quarterly agenda pack and the intention is to discuss this when required within the exempt part of the Board meeting, due to the potential nature of the discussions.

64.14   NS requested that observers be able to see full agenda and exempt papers for the meeting during the year, including the ones where they are not in attendance to give them an idea of what has been discussed at previous meetings. He noted that the majority of the items were exempt and therefore it was difficult to follow some of the matters discussed when the previous exempt reports were not available ahead of the meeting, RM endorsed this view. 

64.15   SK confirmed that RM an GF have written to ACCESS to highlight concerns that observation arrangements are not consistent.

Consultations

64.16   NS asked if it had been considered to challenge the legitimacy for the Fund to bear the cost of corrections to the LGPS as a result of the decisions made by central government, which had now been determined by the McCloud judgement to be unlawful.

64.17   SK understands that this has been raised by other bodies. The consultation gives opportunities to comment on the arrangements. Officers will not miss the opportunity to seek funding if it becomes available.

64.18 Discussions took place on the LGPS pooling consultation. Officers confirmed ACCESS will provide a formal response along with ESPF and officers will keep the Board updated accordingly.

64.19   The Board RESOLVED to:

1) note the report;

2) nominate Neil Simpson as member representative vice chair and Cllr Andrew Wilson as employer representative vice chair;

3) dissolve the Communications working group;

4) absorb the McCloud working group into the Administration working group; and

5) request that RM and NS are given copies of all meeting papers during the year for the ACCESS Joint Committee, including exempt papers.