Pension Board - Monday 2 March 2026, 10:00am - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Pension Board
Monday, 2nd March 2026 at 10:00am 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 

Welcome to our Webcast Player.

The webcast should start automatically for you. 

Webcast cameras are not operated by camerapersons; they are automated and linked to speaker microphone units. The aim is to provide viewers with a reasonable visual and audio record of proceedings of meetings held in public.

Note: If your webcast link appears not to be working, please return to the Webcast Home Page and try again, or use the help email address to contact us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An agenda has not been published for this meeting.

Right well them hello and good morning everyone
Welcome to this pension boards meeting
My name is John Jones the independent chair of the board and I'll be chairing this meeting today
The meeting has been web is being webcast live on the council's website
I'll now ask board members present to introduce themselves
And please can you also state if you have any declarations of interests you may have in the agenda items?
And if so the nature of the interest so start off David
Yes, good morning chair
My name is David Thompson. I represent retired deferred pension fund members
And I have no conflict of interest in any of the agenda items. Thank you. Thank you councillor Ahmed
Good morning everyone. I'm Councillor Musta Garmet and I'm so happy to present to you. I have nothing to declare.
Thank you. John Grey.
Yeah, John Grey representing active admitted statutory bodies. I've nothing to declare.
but if any conversation done in sieve or lap comes up I hold elected positions on those boards.
And Duane.
Morning everyone, my name is Duane Brown and I'm a senior officer and a lawyer representative.
I have nothing to declare.
Thank you. And on screen I can see Aneka.
I have no interest to declare and I represent the employee.
Thank you.
Annette?
Good morning everyone.
Annette McKenna representing admitted bodies employers.
Thank you everyone.
For Hana have we got any apologies for absence today?
No chair, no apologies.
Moving on to the agenda, declarations of interest we've just covered.
Item 3 is the unrestricted minutes of the previous meeting, pages 9 to 18.
I'll take these page by page for any comments or questions, anything that matters arising.
So page 9 page 10 page 11 page 12 page 13.
In respect of item number 8 and the last sentence in which Paul offered to use a budget availability
for training and board members should contact them directly but I see when I
look at training the chairs list of training is extensive it's about
knowledge of training courses that the chair has been on and mine is a request
that training opportunities are shared which would be appropriate with board
members who are not as acquainted with the network of training offers.
Thank you. Paul, do you want to respond to that?
Yes, thank you, Chair. Yes, the training issue is actually part of the budget which we will
discuss later on on the agenda. And although we don't have training so explicit, but it
is a big part of what members and the board will be required to do and offices this time
obviously working with the London CIV will cater for that because they will be part of
the whole arrangement and making sure that training is adequately provided for going
forward. Thank you. It's just if training opportunities comes Paul's way and like
they've come your way they should be shared. We might not take them up but
they should be shared. Later on we see the list which is extensive of the
training and it's just about making aware opportunity that come your way
chair thank you I think the chair is actually invited not by myself or
anybody else say you know offices will you know make every effort to ensure
that you know training as we do it is is or events that we think will be of
interest will be distributed and secondated and equally perhaps you know
if the chair when invited can be asked to you know extend the invite to you
know or to notify officers in advance of the event and it's about that perhaps
can be circulated to the broad membership as well.
I'm gonna suggest, I've got some comments on training,
so can we pick this up a bit later on, I think,
and then we can have a conversation
about some actions going forward,
because as we know, it's becoming increasingly important
and essential that we undertake relevant training.
So with that comment on page 13, page 14,
Page 15.
Page 16.
And page 17.
So with David and Paul's additions, can we agree the minutes, please?
Are we happy to?
Are we?
All right.
Thank you.
Item 4 is submissions from fund members, which I don't think we have any.
none five is responses from the pensions committee there aren't any but just to
reiterate that I do attend the committee and I do present the report that that's
prepared following our discussions and you know I have to do make comments and
observations as the meeting goes along and I think the committee seem to
appreciate that so just pass that on to you right item seven then is reports for
consideration item 7 .1 is administration I'll just open this up for questions
because it does follow the format that we've seen before there does seem to be
some improvements in performance in some of the statistics but anybody's got any
questions look on who David has so past David chair thank thank you and indeed
Rajeev, real improvements across the board.
Two questions for me on paragraph,
the table on paragraph three two, page 23.
The big volume turnover admin items,
new starters and opt -out, but particularly new starters,
show an increase in outstanding cases
between October and December of plus 66.
so you move from 14 to 80. That's a significant increase and I just want you
to comment on why that has so many outstanding, the first two lines. Others
are parallel or going down but numerically less impactful as lines
number one and two and also how that line number one in particular squares to
the description under SIPFAA of 100 % within target 93 and 99. So the juxtaposition of
so many cases still outstanding doesn't square with SIPFAA. Thank you, Chair.
Who wants to pick that? Raju?
In terms of the outstanding cases, we still have a time frame. It's about six weeks to
to eight weeks we have to send the notification to the member.
So depending on when those joiners were submitted via the iConnect,
sometimes it can go cross over between two months.
So that's why even though the outstanding amount is showing 80,
but if you see the stats, we're still completing cases on time.
So that's one of the reasons.
And then the opt -outs.
So with opt -outs, what we're doing is previously we've had issues
where members sent the form, they said they wanted to opt out but it was an action.
So what we're doing is we're keeping these cases open to make sure that these cases are being done, completed.
Once it's done on the payroll, that's when we're completing those cases.
So as a result, sometimes you could see outstanding cases higher,
but it's purely because we want to make sure that the members aren't complaining and it's not getting missed.
So we're keeping them open until they've been taken out the skin.
Okay.
Thank you Chetty, I want to watch continually as we go through.
I mean we should know the improvement in the numbers.
I did a quick tot up when the figures are moving in the right direction,
which follows the trend that we spoke about last time, wasn't it?
Sorry, if I just add, we'd say they have time frame.
Some cases you have four weeks, some cases you have six weeks.
I mean transfers are like two months. Obviously we aim to clear them before those
Thank you John just wanted to say a special thank you to Raju and his team
So previously we've discussed challenges with vacant posts within the team and they still exists
So just wanted to acknowledge the fact that Raju and his team have been progressing and improving
still being slightly constrained by these vacancies in the team and that's being pushed along.
You've actually sort of half, I was going to ask the question actually, because on page, where is it?
26, the post.
Yeah, page 26, obviously there's the posts which have been frozen.
There's two points here, one is the changes that are being introduced by government are going to separate out
make pensions from the rest of the council but he's that freeze been lifted
is it wonder what the current position is
going to advertise it however we have gone down the route of recruiting trainees so that's
gone out now it's been advertised through Work Park which is an agency that deals with
trainee level staff. Hopefully we should be able to train them and get them up to the
standard that we require.
Thank you. So the poster on frozen is the point isn't it and you're out to recruitment
Subject to the pressures and problems getting stuff. Okay, I
Didn't have anything else further. I have one other question on page
page 30
the
314 the haywards
Upgrade and I just wondered what the timeline
For that is it says here the member self -serve has been shut down due to an upgrade
Is that?
Page 30, par 3, 14.
So yes, there was a shutdown.
Basically, Haywood changed the member self service to a new system which is quite new
differently for members.
But we had a brief period where it was completely shut down.
But it's reopened now.
It's OK.
OK.
So we're engaging with our members to get them on board to the new system.
Fine, fine.
OK.
Any more?
Another positive.
Yeah, go on.
Yeah.
We missed another positive.
which is on page 29, 313, by the 30th of January the pension regulator advised
that Tower Hamlets Pension Fund is successfully connected to the pensions
dashboards. That comes up later about compliance in this board and
congratulations.
Thank you, Chair. On that, I think the hard work is only just beginning. It means that from now on
the quality of the data and the availability of that data
will carry real consequences if that's not the case.
Any further questions or comments other than, no?
Not seeing any hands in the room, all right, on the screen.
Yeah, John, John.
I think that's later and it's comp in in comfort in private as well yeah okay
can we happy to agree the report then welcome the improvements yeah yeah hands
going up so thank you very much that takes us on to item 7 .2 which is pages
33 to 40 which is the communications report I'll just open this up for
questions because we've seen this on previous meetings you had a meeting
didn't you employers which by the reading reading the report was not not
many turned up but would you like just update us Paul
responds or the attendance was low. We did everything we could to get as many
employees as possible to attend. However it was a very good event.
the actually attended in person and he would also attend it and it was a very
well put together event and the those that attended the employees found it
very useful meeting and they engaged positively engage with themselves as
well as engage with the officers and presenters and made it clear that you
is something that they would like to see happen going forward.
And that they learned an awful lot,
not just in terms of the regulation,
but the message that they actually
gave them with respect to the actual evaluation 2025,
they found it extremely useful.
So they left with all manner of information
and found it useful.
So we are now looking to engage with them and others going
forward and to build on that and then
to ensure that future events are even better attended
and to basically develop that relationship.
We also chair, have the annual
pension fund information forum taking place
later on this month.
We'll be doing it over a couple of days,
just like we did last year,
because we had over 400 people attending last year,
So we will be doing it again over a couple of days
to ensure that there is maximum participation.
And what is also been happening in the background
as well is that we've been engaging with those
hard to reach places, for example, like the depots,
Raju and all this, the face -to -face engagement
with refugees in December.
I think those are two words.
Yeah, those two.
And so we are really working hard and pushing to make sure
that we reach out to all employees wherever they work.
Those that can come to us and those that can't come to us,
we go to them.
So we are really doing everything we can
to make sure that we engage.
All right, thank you.
I know the board's always been very supportive
of these forums for employees and employers. Has anyone got any questions or comments on
what? Yeah, David.
Yeah, yeah. Two comments. Just for a numerical answer, yeah, the attendance was low, so out
of 66 organisations that are listed in three categories, how low was it? Was it two, six
or nine? Just the number. And then what will we do to make it more encompassing of larger
numbers, briefly. And then just to say that was for employers, for employees on
the previous page we've just passed through LGPS access and fairness.
There's a lot of very attractive new access and fairness proposals that are
going to come in to shape survivor benefits, removing the age limit. They're
for the employee, just a confirmation that they will be highlighted at that point.
Thanks, Chair.
Thank you, Chair. In terms of attendance at the last employers forum, it was about eight marks that you attended.
And that was despite the numerous opportunities
that we actually took to reach out to them,
to, if you like, inform them and invite and encourage
them to attend.
And in terms of going forward, we just
have to do more of the same.
you know, engage them perhaps, you know, several months in advance and maybe even try and maybe
do some of the planning, the agenda planning with them, perhaps to see if we can use that
to entice them to attend. And the disappointing thing this time was the fact that we thought
that because this is, you know, the actuary evaluation year, that that in itself, you
was going to be a big pull factor, the fact that they're all anticipating the evaluation results and all that.
And of course the fact that there's this massive change in regulation, that would encourage them to come and get that information.
But unfortunately most of them didn't.
But having the feedback that we received from those as attended will be valuable information
for us to use to say to the others, for example, this is the feedback that your peers that
attended have given us and perhaps next time to do make the effort to attend.
So this was the first one wasn't it for employers?
It's regarding the employees
pension forum
Appreciate this will be predominantly aimed at council staff directly employ council staff
So have the greatest
core membership. However, how are you going to try to encourage admitted bodies,
statutory bodies, members to attend and participate and learn? I appreciate again
it would be more difficult than this and certainly I would like to be invited if
that's possible to at least one of these forums and also I assume the
recognised trade unions will be invited to participate as well. Thank you. Thank
you, Chair. If I can basically start with the fact that trade unions are always
in a big part of the event. We've already been talking to all the three main
unions about the upcoming event and we've also got, we've shared with them,
including our HR colleagues, the survey questionnaires that we are looking to circulate beforehand
to obviously get the sense of what the employees think about various issues, etc.
et cetera.
And so we are working hand in hand with them.
We will be introducing newsletters and, again,
using technology, for example, engage and all of that.
But we have to be very methodical in the approach
to make sure that we are pushing out the correct message
at the correct time.
But the one thing to say at the moment
is that we are absolutely slowed on that with all the regulatory changes and things are
just coming at us at the rate of nuts. So we need to actually get a sense of where things
are at and then we can start disseminating that information in a very deliberate and
controlled manner and then to make sure that we engage correctly because there's a lot
that is new in the environment at the moment.
So we need to take in that information
and then understand exactly what the implications are.
And then we will then begin to engage and then
share that information with all our stakeholders.
Yeah, John?
Yeah, I appreciate Paul.
I know everybody's busy, but my specific ask
would be, are you going to contact admitted body
employers?
Tell them about this event.
Inviting them to give time off for their staff to attend it, especially any pension planning sessions
And also are you okay if members of the board?
Come along to this
meeting if they're available
Thank you. Yes, the invite will be extended to you know, all our
stakeholders, but obviously it is an
employee event not employer event
So that will make that clear so that there is no confusion as to the audience that this event is targeted at.
So yes, board members are naturally invited and we will, as I said, at the event, we'll take place over a couple of days
because obviously we appreciate that doing it just on one day is probably not going to work for everybody
so that's why we're doing it, at least to give people the opportunity.
So the invite will be extended as widely as possible.
Quickly, if I can get a copied invite, because wearing another hat, I represent admitted bodies for unison.
And so I can circulate that to branches as well if you've got any members in the TANF
expansion fund, this important sort of training and information events taking place.
I suppose I've just intervened at this point.
I mean, we're three weeks away, aren't we, from the first one.
Have the invites gone out yet or not?
No, the invites have not gone out because we need to walk with our cons.
We will happily take off your offer.
All right.
All right then.
So these dates are fixed to 23rd and 27th so invites presumably need to go out the next
few days, don't they, to give people some sort of notice.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Well, I mean, the board is very supportive of these events,
so I'm looking forward to hearing some feedback
on numbers and, you know, what's being discussed.
And can you send any invites to the board as well,
because I have to remind me, and I'll see,
let's try and come along.
Any more questions, comments?
No?
No subject to what we discussed.
Can we be happy to agree this report then, please?
Yeah?
Thank you.
That takes us on to 7 .3, which is the risk register, which is on the supplementary agenda.
This isn't private, is it?
No, this is...
No, okay.
It's just on the repeat.
Now this is, I have to say I haven't really had a chance to, because this came out so
late, I tried to read it online and struggled with it.
Can you just highlight the changes for us?
I don't know if Paul or Arsan or who's going to deal with this, but is this in the new
format that we spoke about in the previous meeting?
So basically, Chair, this is just sketching out
how the patient -funded environment has changed.
And we will be building the new risk register
based on or around the information in this report.
So what this report is doing is setting out
that in line with the new regulation,
you now have these sort of six areas that will be covered to ensure that every aspect of the new
regulation is captured correctly. So for example, for regulatory and such compliance for governance
and oversight, funding and employer, investment and pooling, administration and systems and
engagement and communication. And what it does is, you know, clarifies for example because
the environment has changed based on the regulation, there will be some risk that will be shared
risks and some risks that will be you know just entirely you know pertaining
to for example the pool and in which case you know the fund will basically do
certain monitoring on the on the pool and there will be certain risks that
will be shared and this is already being tested because as we speak there is
you know, war raging in the Middle East,
and of course the impact on the economy and all that,
you'll see straight away that here it talks about
the fact that technical, sorry, tactical,
that tactical ability that the committee
would normally have to sort of respond,
that won't be possible anymore
because implementation in all its entirety will transfer across you know
to the pool that will cause you know a level of frustration for pensions
committees all over the place because in their minds they'd be you know looking
to talk to their advisors to say what do we do here but in the fact that that
opportunity will no longer be there.
So the committees will no longer be
allowed to take advice from outside the pool.
So all of that has, if you like, introduced a new risk.
So things like the committee would
sort of worry about inflation, interest rates, and all
that now that will move across to you know to the pool so which means that you
know it will be sort of so streamlined as to sort of the risk areas that you
know the committee and the board will be able to like directly influence so hence
to design office so the aim is to after the committee and after you know the
in internal order can then work with officers to translate this into the J -card format so
that we then build a new risk register based on all of this and then linked to specific
parts of the regulation so that the board and the committee will be, if you like,
better able to see exactly what these risks relate to,
only to particular aspects of the regulation
to support active monitoring of these risks.
So, and then you will see that Ravidan have
sort of 50 different risks and often conflicting
with each other what this does is absolutely clarify you know exactly
where these risks you know are and all of that and of course the Secretary of
State's involvement because there are different parts of it under the
regulation where the Secretary of State has. Can I just stop there a minute because we
had a presentation on risk registers didn't we a couple of meetings ago and I
think the conclusion there would be down to about 15 or something? Correct. Is that right in the back of my mind? Yes.
So is it and I tot it up there must be 35 or so individual
Is this a sort of work in progress to a new risk register or is this the right who's gonna pick this?
Yeah, so yes
So this is basically setting to all our to say this is the new world and then from this we can build
That risk register on J card because this is not a J card
This is rich registering progress and then we're gonna be new one
Do you want to get it coming also?
The only thing I'll say is, a couple of meetings ago when we, Victoria took us through it and it was really useful,
we did rationalise it at the time, John, so we got it down to about 10 to 12 risks.
But I think the key point here is, this was under the 2016 regulations.
So in doing this sort of work around the risk register and we spent a lot of time focusing on it,
we quickly realised actually, look, this is going to become not fit for purpose in a couple of months' time.
So we had to quickly change our mindset on this.
So it's almost like redoing it completely now.
So I think Paul's done a lot of work
around actually assessing the risk
under the new 2026 regulations.
So this is coming back round.
I suspect it will take a bit more rationalising again.
I note the point around owner's responsibilities,
control measures.
I know we'll get into that,
but I just wanted to explain that particular part of it
and that additional work we've done since we last updated you
So it's moved on, John.
Thanks, thanks for that.
Let's pause a minute, I can see, yeah, David wants to.
Yeah, thanks for that succinct summary
because it is progress and I see the 26 regulations
being the most pertinent to be coalescing around.
So there's two things we identified
with the risk assurance officer for the borough.
that we needed a spread of officers responsible and secondly the mitigations, both of which
you've briefly mentioned, which is welcome. Certainly the mitigations, so with any one
of these we need to see the actions to remedy the threat and look forward to that further
progression towards those basics chair very much thank you and we can we're
gonna come on to in a minute aren't we the new regulations and all the changes
so probably need to pick some of those up then but are there any other
questions or comments specifically on on this paper I'm clearer now than I was I
must say so this is work in progress and by the time it comes back in July or
whenever the next cycle of meetings is, it will be maybe in a different format and be
updated because there's a lot I appreciate there's a lot of work to be done following
government regs.
Okay.
Jay, if I can, if I may just come back quickly on that.
Again, you can only monitor what you know has become real.
All of this is on the back of the new 2026 regulations, which as we speak is still in draught, has not received role accent yet.
So we shouldn't sort of jump ahead of ourselves having a risk register, which by tomorrow morning could well be very different.
So we are building up to it. So we are very, very clear sighted as to what, how the land lies at the moment.
So we are and in fact we have already checked we are well ahead of our peers elsewhere because you know
everybody is in a
sort of
In a confused state not actually knowing exactly when and so we are we've actually moved way further than you know other
London authorities on this and
So we will build these out into the J card
You know template and then the appropriate time and then the board and the committee will be able to see
Thank you, okay with those comments any other questions or comments
Well, can we agree this then as it is and we note that?
It's a work in progress document and we'll come back a later meeting. Yeah, happy to do that. Yeah
Which takes us neatly onto 7 .4 which is the updated position on fit for the future and
as Paul's just said that the regulations are not yet issued.
And do you want to just highlight anything for us in here?
I mean the report's pretty clear for me.
But I'd be just quite interested in what the plans are for appointing the senior LGPF
officer and the reviews and one or two other positions.
I don't know if there's been any movement on that.
So I'll pass it over to Paul or Arsan to respond.
Thank you, Chair.
Yes, the regulations are in the draught form.
and as far as we can see, the direction of travel is crystal clear.
So what we're doing is doing things in the spirit of the regulations for the time being
until such a time as rule accent is gained.
and what we know is that the regulations require certain things to be done by
certain date for example you know the two key appointments to be made before
the end of autumn this year.
And there is the supporting guidance,
statutory guidance for that.
And also we know that under the regulations,
the transfer of all assets must be done by the end of March.
There are authorities that are feeling very confused by it all because they say why do
it if the regulations have not yet received rule of law.
But of course we are being directed that even before that any speed of the new regulations
has to be done.
So we've been negotiating IMAs with the London CIB in our case to facilitate the transfer
of the rest of the assets that are currently outside the pool to the pool by no later than
the 31st of March.
Now again, other things that we are doing in advance of all of that is to review the
asset allocation, the investment strategy statement, the strategic asset allocation
for the fund, precisely to meet the government prescribed nine buckets, because the government
has actually prescribed the nine asset classes that you must base your strategic asset allocation
on so which means that all the other formats that are in operation everywhere are basically
being you know are being banned so not to this board but paper to committee on all of
at where the investment advisor have done a review of the ISS,
the investment strategy in the statement,
and recalibrated everything to align with the government's
format.
So all of that is happening alongside the work
that we are doing with the London CIV to ensure that we are ready and able to handle by the
assets to them by the end of March.
Can I say something there?
I was going to ask a question.
It's based on Para 3 .6, which is the transition plan.
We're now sort of four weeks away from the deadline.
Is everything on target?
Yes, chair.
Everything is on target.
Obviously the lawyers are all very busy, we are pushing as hard as we can to make
sure that the IMA's are, you know, they go through the legal reviews and all that
and before you know we sign them and of course we have to for example the
property mandate is with you know Schroeder's so that will you know need to move
across. So we've got not just the fund manager level IMA's then we've got the
overarching IAMAs that we've been negotiating in concert with the London CIV. So there's a lot of
moving parts in all of this and then also one thing that is not spoken about much is how cash
is managed because the definition of assets is everything including cash but of course that then
created problems because obviously if you say hand over all the cash to to
London CIV then it doesn't really distinguish you know operational cash
from strategic cash you know investment so all of that we've been trying to
unpick to make sure that you know you don't just hand over all assets to the
London's because we have got the benefits to pay it's not the London CIV
that would be paying benefits for us. We need to retain the operational cash and manage
that internally.
Can I pause there and just open this up for questions in case anyone's got anything they
want to raise. David.
Chair, thanks. Paragraph 2 .1, the last word is efficiency. The aim of the reform is to
usher in greater centralization and efficiency.
I wanna stick on the word efficiency.
And my question is, just for a succinct response please,
are there any direct or indirect KPIs
which will show us over coming years
greater efficiency which will benefit the recipients
of the local government pension scheme?
That is costs, savings, impact,
direct or indirect to monitor this major change in a coherent way?
Chair, thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Part of your question is very political, so the answer you get from me may not satisfy
you, because the government have decided that the direction of travel is to centralise the
management of investments.
So whether or not that meets everybody's view of efficiency and better performance, we have
to see.
But in terms of cost and performance locally, yes, again the regulation will oblige the
committee to up its monitoring of the pool. And the administrative authority wears two
in this respect. So being a shareholder and being a client of the pool. So there
are two aspects which is why potentially there could be a conflict of those you
know between those two positions. So you know monitoring the pool both as a
client and you know as a shareholder those two could come into conflict and
which is why again the risk register you know has that as one of those risks
that will need to be managed, which is why, again,
that conflict of interest is a key aspect of it.
Because as I said earlier during the discussion
on another item on the agenda, I said,
once the regulations kick in from the first of April,
then the ability of the fund or the pensions committee
to make any tactical decisions will be scrapped because that implementation
goes to the pool effectively so there is nothing your ability to
actually influence all of these things will be non -existent so you
then just have to monitor and then see what happens. Let me just come in here
because I think there's a huge amount of change going on and the
The roles of the pensions committee are going to,
role of pensions are going to change in terms of
it won't have access, won't be making management
investment decisions, so they'll need to be much stronger
and a completely new different system
of monitoring performance,
and the governance arrangements are going to change,
and I suspect that these issues will develop
over the next few months because it will be,
whilst assets are moving over now
from the 1st of April, the new arrangements are expected to come in to a full operation
from 1st of October this year.
So we will have an opportunity to couple more meetings to see what develops.
So I'm going to suggest we just pick those points up then because as Paul's pointed out,
there's a lot of change going on and the regulations have not yet been issued.
We're now, what, four weeks away from when they're supposed to come in.
So if they're not out, it's hard to pin these things down.
So I'm just going to pause there and are there any other points anybody wants to make on this because it has been
Recognised we're in a period of change. Yeah, no, I don't think nothing John
Nothing on screen
Okay. All right. Well, let's can we agree the report as it is noting the position we're in and
We can pick up this again at the future meeting happy to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you
right that takes us on to 8 which is the agenda for the forthcoming meeting and I
guess most of these reports will be on the meeting yeah next week anyway so
there's an opportunity I'll feedback comments as always so that the committee
can the board's views are picked up in the committee item 9 is training events
There isn't a paper on training, yeah.
Well, there's probably an opportunity to talk briefly, because we did pick this up on the
minutes and I had a couple of comments I wanted to make.
One is my training is reported here and no one else's.
I don't think anybody in the committee is either.
So I'm not quite sure why everything I all my training which I send in is set up in a
public ducking but it's one thing but I do think we're missing as well aren't we training
that that's carried out because any training that the boards here or the committee here
from the actuary or the investment advisors or the sieve or anyone else is not captured
so I'm just suggesting you might want to take that away and look at how that is done separately
so that everyone's training is covered in that way.
And I think the other point to make, and I think David signalled this earlier, isn't it,
I think there needs to be a focal point in to Hamlet's where training is distributed
to committee and board members.
It's what happens in the other fund that I work with, and that works very well.
So when training comes in from the LGA or the SIV or anybody else, those emails are
passed around and they're coordinated centrally and that seems to work quite well.
So training is sort of picked up that way and the take -up has been pretty good there
when these opportunities arise.
Anyway, so that's training. So we can pick those issues up going forward.
Do you want to say any more? Are you happy with that?
Chair, thank you, you've passed on my comments. I've only got one small addition, which is
Mr Robertson, isn't it, who is the advisor, the independent advisor who writes reports.
We benefit greatly in the training context from that gentleman attending this board,
so we could ask supplementaries and he could enlarge on the subjects that he writes about.
So if part of the package that you outlined we could have his attendance also
which is very
illuminating and
Interactive is the best way of learning. Thank you chair
That's a good point
We'll pick that up and I mean Colin can always join online
Can't see for a spot of the meeting if he's free so I'll take between us we could take that up with him. Yeah. Yeah
Yeah, just one of the point on training
I just wondered if there's a training plan.
Now, in anticipation of the new changes that are not yet out, I appreciate that's not the case,
but nevertheless, perhaps a training plan for the actual board would suffice.
It gives us visibility of coming training and so on, so we can plan.
And again, we can act as it has and when these new changes come out as well from government.
training plan?
Yes, there is a training plan in place and again that will be updated in, you know, to
align with the new arrangement.
I think the thing to say on that is there is the sort of fundamental training because
not all training will be face to face, it'll be a mix of training.
There is the one that we always subscribe to, which is the LOLA training,
so that is there for members to, you know, the board and the committee to, you know,
to avail themselves to. All members are signed up to that training anyway and it
covers absolutely everything that CIFAR, LG and everybody, you know, has on their plan.
And then there's the, in addition, there's the pensions regulator training platform as
well, which again, supplements all of that.
And then in addition to that, periodically we have the face -to -face training, you know,
during board committee meetings.
And then what we are now discussing is to have more training, either, you know, external
training and all of that. We will make all efforts to ensure that there is plenty of
training available but of course once we become aware of training opportunities and we circulate
them then of course it's obviously for members and members of the board and the committee
to determine whether or not it works for them because obviously the training will take place when they take place and all that.
But we will step up efforts to just push out whatever we become aware of and then going forward.
And what we say as well is because this is a two -way street too, I think when just like you receive an invitation to attend training,
I think it'd be useful
For that to be brought to the attention of offices to then help to maybe
circulate that
to other members as well
Okay, fair enough. We perhaps we could pick this up separately outside the meeting
Yeah, I'll send
Thank You chair Paul, correct me if I'm wrong. I think we we brought a more comprehensive paper on training
I think it might have been the last board stroke committee meeting
So perhaps particularly for Dwayne we can we can share that I think that kind of covers a lot of the stuff that Paul just mentioned
now
And I do recall that from the last board committee meeting
Yeah, you did and I think Dwayne you weren't here last time were you so Paul?
Can you send Dwayne that report because yeah, I remember now you weren't here, but we did have quite a there was quite a detailed report
on training
Okay
unhappy with that comment
So
Moving on then can we move on to item 10 which is the work plan which is on the supplementary agenda?
Which covers what we the last year so far as I can see I mean
Presumably at the next meeting we'll have a plan that will be forward -looking because this is obviously
Retrospective so we can't really say much about this
This is
set out broadly what would be on the agenda
either for future meetings,
say it's for like the whole year.
So it's set out based on the meeting dates that we've got.
So we're now coming to the end of this.
So there will be a new one for next year
for the four meetings that will take place next year.
So that way again will be a forward looking.
We'll have that next time.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
That moves us on to any other business in the open part of the agenda.
So are there any is there anything anybody wants to raise?
Not seeing any hands go up here.
So in that case, can we move on to we just need to item 12 exclude the press and public
In view of the contents of the remaining items on the agenda the committee is recommended
to adopt the following motion that under the provisions of section 100A of the local government
act 1972 as amended by the local government access to information act 1985 the present
public be excluded from the remainder of the meeting for the consideration of the section
2 business on the grounds that it contains information defined as exempt in part 1 of
scheduled 12a to the local government Act 1972.
And can I have a seconder for that motion, please?
Yeah, something, second it, thank you, Duane.
And we're all happy, can we agree the motion, please?
Yeah, thank you.
So we'll now move into private.
Okay, please.
Yeah.