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Pensions Committee
Thursday, 1st October 2026 at 6:30pm

 

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An agenda has not been published for this meeting.

Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to the pension committee meeting.
My name is Councillor Lassili
and I am the chair of the committee.
This meeting is being held in person.
Committee members and key participants
are present in the meeting room.
Only the committee members present in the meeting room
will be able to vote.
I would like to thank the committee members
Other persons may be also attending remotely.
Committee members and others who have chosen
to attend remotely have been advised
by the committee officer that should technical difficulty
prevent their full participation in the meeting,
it may proceed in their absence if I feel it is necessary.
I would remind members at the meeting to only speak on my direction and to speak clearly
into their microphones to ensure that their contribution can be properly recorded.
Can everyone ensure that the mobile phones are switched off or on silent mode?
I would like to remind members present that they have committed through the members'
pledge to treat one another with dignity and respect, to give others the opportunity to
to speak, to listen to different views,
views of viewpoints, and ensure that challenge
is constructive and inclusive.
I look forward to seeing all attendees demonstrate
this commitment through their conduct this evening.
I will now ask committee members to present, to introduce themselves.
Please, can you also state your, any declaration of interest at this time?
Can I just start from this side, please?
Thank you, chair.
Councillor Saeed Ahmed, nothing to declare.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any apologies for absence?
No Chair, I've not received any apologies.
We move to agenda item two.
Can I invite members to approve the unrestricted minutes
of the meeting held on 30th July, 2026,
and 15th September, 2026,
as an accurate record of proceedings.
Thank you.
Farhana, have you received any petitions?
No, Chair, no petitions received.
Thank you.
Can I invite John Jones to present his verbal report, please?
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
Just a few points to make.
The board meeting didn't go ahead as planned a couple of weeks ago, so there's no sort
written report or feedback directly from the board but i do i do have one or two
comments on the papers before you this evening if that's acceptable and i just
make those points when we when we reach those items thank you
Thank you.
Can I invite Paul Odu to introduce the report please?
We can follow up with the questions afterwards.
Thank you, Chair.
This report is on pages 25 to 36 on the soft copy, or I think it's on 25 on the hard copy.
run of the new report. I'm happy for the report to be taken as read, but just to
quickly mention that the fund had 27 ,898 members at the quarter end and the team
completed 265, sorry 2 ,605 workflows against the 2 ,590 produced during the
The backlog has reduced substantially and the debt claims continues and within that
underpayments have been processed and we are now resolving the overpayments as per the
agreed process.
Chair, I'm happy to stop there and take any questions but the committee is asked to note
this report.
Thank you.
Is there any questions?
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you.
Just a quick observation.
I think the committee should welcome the continued improvement in prevention's administration.
Those of us with longer memories remember the level of backlogs that they were, and
I know the team have worked very hard to clear those out, and that comes through in the report
today.
So on behalf of the board, I think we should point this out to the committee and welcome
the improvement.
Thank you.
Any more questions?
Yeah, Victoria.
Thank you, Chair.
I completely agree and congratulate on the reduction of the backlog.
I was just wondering if, as a new committee member, if you could just take us through
what drove that reduction in backlog, and given staffing levels at the moment, is that
sustainable?
Sorry, thank you, Chair.
So the backlog, as I said, has reduced substantially.
I think a fall from 331 outstanding tasks to 26.
Most tasks are now completed within five to ten working days, although opt -outs are still
you know areas that we are focusing on, so opt -out processing remains an area for improvement
and recruitment of experienced staff remains difficult.
And we've got two trainee officers who have joined recently
and going through the apprenticeship programme
and they're doing very well.
So all in all, the workflows is helping a lot
in the sense that things like refund calculations,
refund payments, deferred benefit, general estimates,
those you know sort of coming through and being you know processed you know
quickly retirement quotes you know deaths and all that because they're
obviously are prioritised so any death cases that are reported and it take
priority over you know anything else and in general correspondence so what we've
been doing is weaning people off of you know just phoning up or just dropping it
non -announce and all that, so encouraging them to use the portal, either send an email so
they can be logged and processed in the order in which they come in, because
otherwise there is like people jumping the queues and all that and then
delaying that order in which you know that workflow is supposed to work. So we've
been encouraging people to you know be confident that their cases will be dealt
with you do speedily when they come in so if they sort of writing to pensions
at our Hamlets dot gov the UK and then the benefit to them is that you know
that query is logged you know timestamp so we know when it came in and all that
so you sort of go into that process and then be picked up in the right order and
the process so generally that's what's been helping to just keep things flowing
I think Paul covered it really well.
I think the key part that did want to circle back to was investment in the service, and
that's something we acknowledge probably about two years ago, so we were already active to
ensure that we got a specific pension administration manager imposed.
And I think Paul looked right to think that's about 18 months ago.
We've subsequently recruited trainees and apprenticeships and it's gonna be key that we maintain that
And retaining our own resource and training and developing the use
Because it's a very hard resource to come across. I think investment has been a key part in terms of tackling the backlog
Okay
If there is no other questions, can I
Can the report be recommended to be noted, please?
Thank you, Mr Jones, for your report.
We are now on item 6 .2. Can I invite Paul to introduce the report, please, as well?
Thank you, Chair. This report is on pages 37 to 44. The report sets out how we are engaging
with both members and employers.
The proposed Pension Fund Information Forum
is due to take place on the 26th and 27th of this month,
and it will cover the key areas of benefits,
governance, admin funding, investments,
and then also the 2025 actual evaluation,
and then crucially retirement planning is always an area that members are keen to find
out about and of course we take the opportunity to encourage members to use the portal as
well because it helps us to get things done a lot quicker.
We are broadening engagement through online sessions, workplace activity and accessible
communications. The employer forum held in January this year supported
discussions around the valuation and regulatory change because that was very
important to sort of give them the heads up on amongst other things Feed for the
Future and also to get feedback from them and that feedback indicated a need
for regular engagement and practical data workshops.
The next major employer and stakeholder engagement exercise
will be the consultation we are obliged to do
on the revised investment strategy statement,
the ISS, ahead of the 31st of March,
2027 publication deadline.
So we will report engagement performance annually
and the committee is asked to note these activities
and the proposed forum agenda,
which is in the pack as well.
Chair, I will pause there in case there are any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paul.
Is there any questions from the members?
Can I then, can members please,
Can I ask the comments?
The report is noted.
Do you want to...
Sorry.
Just one clarification, Chair.
Paul, if you could just explain 3 .11,
where councillors and mayors in England access the LGPS from 11 May.
Is that an automatic entry or do members need to opt into it?
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, so the regulation which is on the back of the access
and fairness regulation 2026 was designed
to align England with the rest of the country.
So Wales and Scotland have always
had elected members and mayors in the LGPS.
It was the case in England, and it was stopped.
but obviously it was deemed unfair
for the English elected members.
They've been brought back in.
So yes, the information is that they have
that automatic right to be in,
but they have to, you know,
if they don't want to join it, then they can opt out.
It is meant to be automatic,
where for whatever reason members want to be or expect to be opted in but
they're not then you know then it is right that they've got to be opted in
and sure I'll just like to expand on that because one of the things that we're
looking to do as part of the engagement is actually to ensure that elected
members are actually included in the event that we hold for members so that
because I think we really encourage that for members to join in and then
because I think it will obviously help in that you know engagement activity
so we will because as a group we felt that is probably too small a group so
will just sort of add them to the whole sort of collective
and enter that they have all the information at the same time
as all the other members.
Thank you, Jay.
Dala, did you have a question?
No.
Any comments or questions?
No.
OK.
OK.
Can I ask then the comments on this, on the committee
are noted.
Can I, can members please note the agree and agree the recommendation on page 37 of the
agenda.
Thank you.
We can move to agenda item 6 .3 now.
Can I invite Paul again to introduce the report please.
Thank you chair.
just to cheque that everybody has the updated supplementary paper that was
sent for for this particular item the updated supplementary item so I'm going
to yes talk to that so the updated report asks the committee to approve the
September register and to endorse a proposal for the architecture that is laid out for
developing the strategic risks further. So we've been on this journey to streamline the
number of risks so that the committee has a better focus on the principal risks. So
To date we've succeeded narrowing them down from where they were before about 35 to 15 principle risks that we've identified.
We've quarterly reviewed and reported to the committee. In the papers you will see that the highest scored current risks are critical pension systems and technology infrastructure,
that's PF09 and the local investment slash responsible investment
expectations that's PF12 each scoring currently 20 and it is the pool delivery
investment strategy and stakeholder communications that are also elevated in
this quarter. The immediate systems issue is the sequence of the contract
milestone, say for example the pensions admin software is due to be renewed at
the end of this month so quite rightly it is you know high up there and the
risk management system that is up for renewal in February 27 but what offices
have been doing is engaging with colleagues in internal audit and we both
agreed that it would be prudent for the pension fund to have his own register so
to that end we've been engaging with J -Card to develop that further so things are moving
you know happening behind the scenes and then the council's HR
payroll system supporting pension apparel that is expiring in February 2028 but the management of
account is outside of pension.
So we are engaging with colleagues in payroll, HR,
to ensure that that arrangement is renewed.
But if it's going to be transferred elsewhere,
then obviously pensions will need
to be satisfied that the service will not
be interrupted in any way, shape, or form,
because that is what we rely on to pay the pensioners.
A paper came to this, to the last but one committee
with the options being looked at,
one being to move the pensioner payroll
from where it currently sits into pension proper
so that it can be brought into the same umbrella
as the pensions system so that it's on the one roof and that we can run just
one database as opposed to running two separate databases and then of course
with the issues of reconciling those databases and all that. So that's one
option are still on the table that we are looking at chair and then the
register also captures the governance reforms issues and then the dependence
and of course the cyber security and data quality issues.
Members are asked to approve the register
and then to endorse the proposed strategic risk architecture
so that we can continue to streamline the register
in consultation with the relevant people.
So, chair, I will pause there and happy to take any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paul.
Any questions for a moment?
Yes, Mr Collins.
So, if I may address, it is Appendix 2, which is the second part of it, which gives 15 broad
headings.
And this has come to us to you before previous meetings.
And the main big point has been that Appendix 1 is very detailed and it is not appropriate
really to have a very detailed risk register because you're bound to miss
some of the risks so you want to have broad headings which will encompass the
main points and then give some examples perhaps of the different risks. So you
want to have a bit more detail than is given in appendix 2. The idea is to work
on appendix 2 and produce some more points onto that but it should all be
very broad and it should be I think similar to what other pension funds in
London, other boroughs do, and they invariably have 10 to 15 broad headings
very much along the lines of the ones that have been put down there covering
liabilities and these kind of general headings. We also had a meeting with
Victoria, who's certainly forgotten, who does the risk for the council and try and find
commonality so that this would look similar in many ways to the council's
other risk registers. And I think there's a lot of scope for commonality. It's not
going to be a, you can't have the same structure exactly, but there's a lot of
scope to things which are quite similar. And for example there's one category
which is you can, there's four things you can do.
I've written that somewhere here.
Treat, transfer, terminate or tolerate
is the four kind of catch words for the general one.
And the same sort of thing can happen here
because a lot of the risks are unavoidable.
We can't avoid stock markets collapsing.
We can't avoid bond yields going up.
We can't avoid politics.
So you have to live with these things
and they can be mitigated.
A key aspect here is to put in to the risk register the mitigating factors.
So for example the first heading is about not getting the expected return.
So mitigating kind of features there would be diversifying across lots of
different asset classes which means the risks are reduced. The foreign exchange
risk is actually hedged in the fund to some extent so you can do that sort of
thing. Rebalancing the asset allocation back to the benchmark of yourself is
other example of that. And then regular monitoring by myself or Paul or whoever is another mitigating
action. So you'd have mitigating actions for each of these 15 type headings and you would
have some examples of it there. But you've got a very important thing that you have broad
headings because otherwise you're bound to miss some feature. The riskiest things are
things you haven't thought of. If it's a well -known risk then it's not really a big risk. It's the things you don't think about are the big, big risks.
So I think the idea is to, I should say something about this because we've worked together on this, is to take it from here and then put more detail onto this.
So the thing is to put to the committee the proposal that this should be the structure of the risk register along with a bit more detail and mitigating actions.
That's the and to tie in with what the council itself is is doing in terms of risks
So I don't think you want to prove anything tonight other than that
It's okay to actually progress on this particular way. Can I suggest cheer that ass and says something on this?
Can I suggest to ask them says something on this?
Thank you chair one going beyond too much in terms of how Paul and calling a fed back
I think from an overarching point of view we have an existing risk register, which is very granular
That's presented to you in appendix one and that's how it stands
So the report against the last quarter is presented
I think the key notion around this paper is moving forwards and we've had discussions with the committee and the board on this previously
Getting to that holistic position
rationalising those risks and I think that puts us in a better position in terms of
capturing the risk universe if you like and mitigate against sort of us risks us
being exposed to specific risks so appendix 2 is the key headings that we
want to get endorsement on in terms of the approval of the paper so we can
flesh out the holistic risk register and bring it to the next committee. We'll have
the main risks and some of the components that Colin mentioned around
Mitigations controls treatments rationalisation of owners
So just the key aspects of the paper in terms of what you're endorsing and approving tonight. Thank you
Thank You chair, I just wanted to ask about the
PF 12 this one about I
I mean, the way I'm understanding this is that it's about the tension between us as
councillors and pension committee wanting to have some kind of control over the investment
decisions of the pension fund and then the constraints of the London SIV and our advisors
and officers.
Is this risk so high as a result of the recent motion that was passed and the discussion
that we had in the extraordinary pensions committee meeting,
or has this been a high risk for a while?
And there are some mitigations here,
but I'd like to hear how you see that tension,
and how we go about kind of resolving it.
Victoria, who is your question to?
To our kind of officers and advisors.
I think Paul will answer that first.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. I think in the new environment, the fit for the future environment, what has
come into sharper focus is the demarcation which has been put in there deliberately in
the regulations that the fundamental change being that the committee's role now moves
from taking active decisions around, for example,
the appointment of managers and asset allocation
and then geographical location of those investments,
the approach for management, active or passive, and so on.
All that has now been put into that implementation
side of things, which has transferred to the pool.
So the assets have moved along with the implementation responsibility being given to the CIF, which
means that going forward, it's already happened from 1st of April, that the London CIF is
responsible or the pool is generally responsible for implementation of your strategy.
so the committee decides at grassroots what the strategy of the fund is and also that strategy
should be done in line with the investment buckets, the nine buckets that the government
has obviously prescribed. So once that allocation is done then it transfers to the London CIV to
implement. So naturally there is a risk that there'd be a friction between what
the committee you know would like to happen to those assets and of course the
fact that the committee cannot obviously do those things because the
implementation has now moved across to the London CIP. So the London CIP then
decides whether the approach should be passive or active,
whether the proportion, X proportion of what is in,
for example, global equity as an example of an asset class
should be in North America, Europe, Asia, or wherever.
What should be in a portfolio, what to buy, what to hold,
what to sell, they decide that.
So all that has been taken away.
The managers that they bring in to manage the assets,
again, it's within their remit.
So whether they sort of bring in one manager, two managers,
three managers, and the complementarity,
how those managers sort of work together.
So all of that, they now decide that.
So detention then builds up when it comes to, for example,
areas of ESG, responsible investment,
where for example committee wants to exclude certain assets now that becomes
problematic because the one thing that the pools cannot be if you like if you
like made to you know if you like you cannot put the f*** the pool in a
position that they cannot implement the strategy
that you've given them, because that then becomes
a difficult tension to manage.
They must feel able to be able to deliver
on the strategy that they've got.
Perhaps, Steve, you probably want to comment on that
to just clarify that point of that sort of tension
and how best to manage it.
It's going to be an ongoing issue and I think all LGPS committees they're just going through
a period of transition and we kind of need to see how it's actually going to work out
in practise. But the issue really is you still maintain control of the most important decision
that impacts return and risk. That's the allocation decision. But everything else in terms of
implementation is all down to the pool.
So you've definitely now got a loss of control
compared to what you had before.
And undoubtedly, there's gonna be some issues
that you would prefer the SIV to invest in a certain way.
But they might not be able to facilitate that,
or they might not be able to agree with that.
Where we have those tensions,
you're gonna have to work collaboratively with the SIV.
And to be fair to the staff, I think they've got a very engaged approach.
They're looking to understand what your objectives and preferences are and then see how they
can solve that, recognising that they've got to do the same for, in total, 32, 33 additional
clients.
So that's the kind of, the situation and I think we're just going to see how it turns
out.
the last meeting?
So, yes, Councillor.
Just on that, am I understanding that these
mitigations are new since the last council meeting?
Because it says here about established protocol for
council motions, I do think after the last extraordinary
meeting, in retrospect, it would have been good to have a
in order to guide the motion that was then made.
Because I think, sort of democratically speaking,
it's unfortunate to have a motion
that's passed almost unanimously
and then not to actually be able to implement it.
So I wonder if that, yeah,
was that clause here before that mitigation?
And also might it be worth a bit of extra training
for council, for members to understand
what's possible and what's not?
Thank you, thank you, Chair.
Yes, I think since the dawn of the new environment, the Feed for the Future, so we knew that was
where things were going to land.
The landscape obviously changed as soon as the regulations were passed.
Those powers that the committee used to be able to exercise moved across to the pool,
So there was no other way to sort of reconcile them because effectively the committee's role
sort of moved from being able to actually do things to simply monitor, you know, things.
And but, you know, as Steve said, but work collaboratively with the pool,
with other partner forms, and then perhaps try to exert influence whichever way, you know,
with the pool. The pool is listening to various ideas and all that and then to see how they can
work with the partner funds and then do things that, because at the end of the day there is
always cost attached to whatever they do, so they want to obviously manage things in such a way that
cost is kept at a level that everybody is happy with.
But in terms of obviously exclusions,
what they have done is on their ESG sort of framework,
so they've got the three pillars,
pillar one, pillar two, pillar three,
which they hope that across the membership,
i .e. the partner funds, say, committees,
pension funds will be able to choose which pillar,
which of those three pillars is more closely aligned
with their views, so that they can then sort of
walk within that, because there are exclusions,
with maybe some of those exclusions probably don't go
as far as some firms would like,
but it's always a good starting point,
and then see how they can then influence
the investing companies on top of that to see whether they can sort of, you know, get
more achieved by combination of exclusion and then
sort of
engagement, you know, with the investing companies.
So in terms of the risk register, which is the topic,
in very much broader terms which I think is where you should start off and then go down to a more
gradual level but the risk here really is the transition risk from one system to a new system
and the actual transition implementation of it is a risk and also is a risk that the people at
London Sieve who haven't done this before may not be very good at it. So there's two main things they
One is they choose managers, which they've not been very good at,
but the other one is they had to set up a new strategy team
to do the asset allocation, to get strategy advice,
and they've had very little time given to them by the government to set up a team.
Now I think the fact that they've done a very good job of creating a credible team,
but the team hasn't worked together before and never done this.
Obviously that's quite a big risk,
but it's all been done from scratch in a short period of time.
So these I think are the transition risks under the system.
So it's a process risk in terms of, and then there's a kind of haven't done it before type risk.
So I think if you start from the top and work down. So in terms of what Paul was talking about, it's a very good example of
implementation risk because some they've got to do over
the ESG aspects and you've got to set up a structure for ESG and they've got 33
clients who have different views on it and they can't have 33
individual
approaches to the whole thing, they've got to get some structure in place which
makes the viable. As Paul's saying they've got these three tiers so the risk there
is that it doesn't work out very well the way they've done it. I think they've
actually done it very well and we're all hopeful it will work so there's a big
risk as the transition risk. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Colin Robertson.
If there is no one we can probably say the comments are noted I guess yeah?
Can I just ask members please note and agree the recommendation on page 46 of the agenda?
Okay.
Thank you.
That's all done.
We can now move to 6 .4.
Can I invite Paul again to introduce the report to 6 .4, please?
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
This is the update on the report that has been coming to this committee now over the last two or three
meetings so this is a
progress report on implementing the 2026 LGPS governance and pooling reforms
the funds
Strategic asset allocation was brought on the London CIB
controlled by 1st of April 2026 as we've been discussing and I'm pleased to say
that we the funds signed the investment management agreement with the London CIV
yesterday which was the deadline set by the Secretary of State to have
or IAMAs in place.
So the next priorities are the required constitutional
amendments and clear out delegations and so on.
And the preparation and the revised investment strategy
statement that we were just discussing,
that needs to be consulted upon and then published
by no later than 31st of March, 2027.
And in the first independent governance review,
the IGR is due by the 31st of March, 2028.
Now these are very tight timetables,
and we've been trying to persuade the MATLG
through the Scheme Advisory Board to perhaps consider
making the first IGR due by 31st of March, 2028,
you know, as, if you like,
not the real IGR, but something that could be,
you know, considered, you know, just an initial,
you know, report to help to set, you know, proper specification of what the future IGRs,
you know, should look like. So in other words, making it a dry run of the future IGRs because
this meant to be a three yearly cycle so it's just like the actuarial evaluation.
So the reforms place substantial demands on officer capacity and you know may have
cost implications as well. So the committee is asked to note the progress
as you know spelled out in the report and request quarterly implementation
reports throughout the coming year, so 2026, 27 and 2728.
Chair, I will pause there and happy to take any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any questions on that?
Yes, please.
Yes, thank you, Chair, and thank you, Paul, for that explanation.
I wanted to ask a question about point three point three seven and thanks as
well to council of them for bringing up the previous point to clearly you know
the motion you've already talked about the fact that that is changing you know
the considerations that have to take place clearly also it's not just local
democratic mandate that we're talking about now we're also talking about a
and national policy as well.
So, you know, it's very good to see
that the national government has recognised
this obvious issue.
In terms of what the council can do,
my concern is we're talking about the tight timelines
already and we're talking about London CIF
doing new things they haven't done before.
I'm concerned that this review,
whether they'll be up to it in terms of sufficient
scrutiny in terms of whether we can adhere to national policy as well as
international law and everything we've spoken about already and so I was also
wondering and I appreciate what you're saying as well about London's hips new
control so what can the council do in terms of their interaction with London
sieve with regards to this review
thank you I think in terms of what the council can do obviously the council as
the Ministry of Authority will have the ability
through this committee to engage and put their views
to the London CVE and then the London CVE
will obviously be the recipient of similar views
from across the older partner forms, 33 in total now,
and communicate that to MHCLG.
And the more those views are pushed up the chain to MHCLG,
then they can do one of two things,
either grant more time to allow forms to better prepare.
because the IGR is basically a super audit of the governance and operations
of all pension funds so making sure that all the statutory requirements are
complied with operationally you know you name it it cuts across absolutely
everything. We've done a workshop on it because the regulator will be involved
as well the pensioners regulator will be involved and in fact they will be
if you like, marking the score sheets and because the IGI reports will obviously end
up on the desk of the Secretary of State. And so the key challenge is how to ensure
that things are done consistently because obviously there are big funds with huge resources
to be able to get things done. Some pension funds are a separate sort of authority in their own right
and then at the other end you've got a small or smaller fund that are not as well resourced. So
there are issues there as to the preparedness of funds across the piece. So yes, what the
that the Ministry and authorities can do is through the Penjes Committee to try and put
this point to the London City officers will be able to do so on behalf of the committee.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You will take Tana first, please.
Do you want to speak on the...
Steve.
Oh, yeah, yeah, go for it.
I think it's relatively straightforward for the committee to have more of a influence on
What the sieve does it considers?
And that is through making sure that you have representation on the various steering groups that they have
So to affect the sieve do you put a lot of work and effort into the steering groups and looking to get reputane?
representation from individual partner funds and they've got steering groups on all the key areas that you
That would be of interest to you.
So probably the most high -profile ones are
in relation to RI and also local investing.
So if you can nominate someone on behalf of the committee
to represent your voice,
that's gonna be the most effective way of doing that,
I think.
Thanks, Steve, that's a good suggestion.
So I had two queries, 3 .24.
Then at the last meeting we requested officers to commence process for appointing
independent person so I just wanted to get an update on that and
finally section 6 around
The resource implications of all this new stuff coming along. It does talk there very broadly about
Resourcing challenges we proved into budget for more resources
but it would be good to understand so how much and
and by when will we know and that kind of information because we're obviously
going through about the same process and we're good to understand how much all
this would cost and link to that just to understand whether there's any sort of
new burdens funding or anything that government will provide to support us
with that. Thank you, thank you chair. So with respect to the independent person
because again that's a very prescriptive thing the government has done there so
there is almost like a job description for the role and also groups of people
that are allowed to do it but I think as a stopgap the committee already agreed
to extend the contract for calling whilst arrangements are made to satisfy that requirement
in line with the government regulations.
So for us it's not an immediate problem because at least we've got calling providing
support in that respect.
Discussions are taking place because various parties are involved to make sure that everything is done in line with the regulations because all that will form part of the IGR
because the IGR have been a super audit so they want to see how you did XYZ
was that in line with the regulations and all that so all the funds are
talking we all speaking and checking comparing notes and all that and then
making sure that we act either exactly as a regulation of Blagiosource to do
say your wider point around resources, et cetera.
Yes, we're all in the same boat, all the funds,
so it's a common problem we have,
because obviously if you recruit a good person,
it's only because that person has left somewhere else.
So what some of us are doing or contemplating doing
is bringing in, if you like, fresh blood new people,
and sort of training them up, but that is a journey.
But just finding the skilled professional people,
that is difficult. Because if you can imagine,
89 funds in UK are looking for exactly the same thing
at the same time.
So that demand is so strong, but the supply is rather weak.
So we're all in the same boat, which
is why we're all sort of pushing once a message you know to MHC -LG in terms of
the IGR perhaps so I allow more time but as yet the other man that I know 30
first of March 2028 must be the date that that must happen sorry just to
clarify then so the government have asked us to do some work but they
haven't really provided funding for us to do that. Thank you, thank you chair.
Yes we're all saying that you know it's a tough ask but the government is saying
we know but do it. Thank you chair. The only thing I would add to that is in
relation to the independent person because there'll be a lot of local
authorities and councils look into a point as well so it will be a there'll
be a lot of demand for it so one thing that I did want to give assurance to
members is officers will ensure that this is treated with urgency and ensure
that we have a clear procurement route our next update for committee we have
transitional arrangements in place but just wanted to mention that point around
how we will be treating it as an urgent issue
Thank you chair.
Just a question connected to Councillor Chaudry's question about resources and budget.
Just on section 3 .35 the local investment, I remember back in our briefing that we had
in July, I think it was people from London, SIV were saying that it will take time to
find local investments in Tower Hamlets.
Obviously here, you know, we might have particular needs or wishes to invest
around housing infrastructure. These were mentioned back in the briefing. Here in
section 3 .35 there's no mention of town limits at all. So have London's have
already identified investments in town limits? Is that going to be a focus? Is it
going to take several years to do that? Because that I imagine affects our
budget. Thank you chair. Local investment is one of those areas that lots of people are focused on,
most of them still scratching their heads because obviously there are different definitions to local
so local can be national, can be regional, can be just your own local area and obviously how
you do it will have an impact on the risk that you end up running because obviously the bigger
the geography then they lower your risk. And the regulation also requires the pension funds to work
collaboratively with the pool and with the original mayor. So in London as you can imagine,
So you've got two pools in London, in fact, so you've got London SIP that we belong to
and there's also LPPI. So the old LPFA, Lancashire, Berkshire, and then six additional partner
funds I've joined recently as a result of Access and Brunel being taken out of the picture.
So you now have if you like big groups of investors in a London CIV, LPPI, the
regional mayor, sort of at a very strategic level looking at opportunities
not just in London but you know across the region and a lot of consultation has
has been going on, say for example, what area would you
sort of like to be part of that local investment?
Is it like strategic housing?
Is it like renewable infrastructure?
Is it like the sort of thing, regeneration and all of that?
With a view to sort of coming up with a strategic document
that identifies, you know, if you like, the core areas that the membership, the partner funds,
would most like the London CIF to focus on. Maybe housing actually is number one on their list of
areas that pension funds are interested in. And then the discussion then moved to okay, housing,
So how do we sort of engage with the professionals in this space to identify opportunities and
then how these opportunities could then be exploited and then value delivered to members.
It takes time, A, to assemble the right people to sort of appraise opportunities and then,
if you like, stack them up with a view to investing in them.
And I'm sure that, Steve, you probably
hear some of these discussions and approaches
and what people are doing in this area.
I think the next key milestone is
that the SIV have been doing a lot of work
to work out actually how they would implement
local investing for all London boroughs.
And they're due to provide an update to partner funds sometime autumn.
The way it's likely to work we understand is a multi -asset vehicle.
So you get exposure to lots of different types of asset classes and opportunities that potentially we have the opportunity to do what might be referred to as a sidecar.
Where they try and do something more specific in a particular area.
Other than that, I think it's a case of you'll have to wait to see what the SIV say in terms
of how they think it's best to implement this.
In the meantime, you need to make some decisions between now and the end of the year in order
to get a draught investment strategy statement ready.
As part of that, you need to make some decisions about how you want to articulate your local
investment policy that will need to cover the
Target size so like zero to three percent to zero to five percent
target area so the the furthest you can go in the target area is you could express it as
the area of the pool
but with a preference for
Opportunities in town helmets you you can't go any more specific than that
You can say
particular impact areas that you want to have.
So you can't actually specifically say
you want to invest in temporary housing.
That decision is down to the SIV.
But you can maybe kind of like be creative
in how you kind of influence what the SIV do
by say you'd want to have an impact
of alleviating temporary housing issues in the borough.
But you're gonna have to set up a meeting
in the coming quarter four to make some decisions so you can draught your ISS.
Thank you, Chair. But just to be clear, I imagine most boroughs in London are going to want to say
preference to focus on my borough and will probably want to focus on housing. Does that
that the the sieve if with for the burrows within your pillar they can't
give preferential treatments to our handlers they're just gonna have to
focus on all the burrows within their pillar
I think Paul is willing to answer that. You can join him later.
Thank you, Chair. Can you just be more precise and a quick
appointment? Thank you, Chair. I was just going to pick
up on the sidecar that Steve mentioned. There are fund managers or specialist investors
who are actually doing a very important piece of work independent of the pooling companies,
mapping out every inch of the United Kingdom where, for example, there are companies that
are not the big sort of up and coming businesses that require investment and so that they can
then make them visible to all the pools to then see you know and they do it like
area by area to London Cambridge so they've mapped out a whole of the UK and
then also one of the side causes where is lending to SMEs so small medium you
know businesses that are adopted all over the place they could even be
entire Hamlet but these are independent of the pool so people are mapping out
all of these and they will then you know give the pools the opportunity to sort
of sort of zone in and invest in them.
Sorry yeah very quickly the urgent thing which is what Steve is referring to is
generalities as to how much you want to invest and broad readers is really
urgent and you have to do that for legislative type purposes. That's the point one.
Point two, there is an inherent conflict in all of this that everybody wants to invest in their own borough.
And just to confirm to staff Steve that the London CIF has to consider everything you might put forward,
but they can't actually do that in practise because if 34 boroughs each put forward 20 properties for consideration,
they don't have any staff to do it. So there's going to be a lot of compromise involved in the whole thing.
And London said it wants to promote products which invest across all the boroughs,
in which every borough can participate in.
So it's going to take a while to find out how it works in practise,
but you have to do your ISS, that's the structure of the situation, now.
Thank you. Steve, do you want to?
Yeah.
Okay, so I'll get, I guess it's all noted here.
Can I ask the comments, everything is noted.
If so, we can move to, I'm just asking the members,
please note and agree the recommendations on page 81
of the agenda.
We can move on to agenda number seven.
training in this year. Can I also invite Paul to introduce, to present the update.
Thank you chair, there is no particular paper on this and I think training obviously is
a key part of the requirement for both the committee and the board and that's very explicit
the regulations so officers will be making sure that there are lots of
training opportunities that will you know benefit
members of the committee and on the board thank you
thank you
we can move to item eight now the chair i'm sorry um point
Point five that in the previous the pension fund closing
Yeah, I think that was missed actually prior to the training events
It was it was five point five on mine
I think you've been referring to them as six point something but the the subsection point five
Prior to training events pension fund closing and external and all that. I believe we've missed it
can just thank you chair this is on pages 77 to 174 so this is the draught
annual report and accounts they presented for approval while the
external audit is at an advanced stage at 30 first of March 2026 the funds net
assets were 2 .4 billion pounds approximately, up from 2 .2 billion a year ago. EY is currently
completing its audit and will issue its opinion after the remaining procedures have been completed.
The statutory deadline to publish the final annual reporting accounts is 1st of December
and the committee is asked to approve the draught subject to the completion of the audit
and to delegate approval of any non -material amendments needed for publication to the corporate
director of resources and head of the Penn State Treasury. And any material adjustment,
significant findings or change to the expected audit opinion will be brought
back to the committee before publication where practicable or reported promptly
afterwards chair if the deadline requires it. Again I will just pause there
and happy to take any questions. Thank you. Any brief questions for anyone please?
Thank you.
Okay.
Can members please go to this one.
Can members please note and agree the recommendation on page 81 of the agenda?
Okay.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Okay.
Okay, so we skipped one so we just record.
Okay, agenda item eight.
Can I ask members to note the pension committee work plan?
Are there any suggestions members wish to make?
The pension committee is recommended to note
Now the work plan for the committee.
So any, any suggestions for members?
Can I just see on the work plan the stuff that Steve mentioned earlier where we can
have the embed the steering group and everything we can have with London SIV.
Do we embed it into this work plan in any way?
Thank you, Chair.
That's an ongoing thing.
It is part of the relationship we have with the SEIF.
So it's not something that is like a one event.
It's part of us working with them on an ongoing basis.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Could I just cheque where is the agreement of the development
and the agreement of the ISS on you. Have I missed it somewhere?
Thank you chair. No the ISS there will be reports that will cover the ISS but the
the consultation and the publication of it that is in the fit for the future
but that's where it is highlighted because,
and also it features in a risk register as well.
Where is that in the work programme?
The work programme, the ISS is not a standalone thing,
it's all part and parcel of the management,
so it's not a standalone event.
So the ISS has already been approved,
so it's in the works with the,
So we working on it with the London CIV.
A very important point to mention here,
is that under the regulation, strategic advice
or the principle advice should only come
from the London CIV going forward.
So again, we are at this point,
obviously benefiting from March,
but investment advice should also come from the London CIV.
So in addition to them,
London's Eve having the implementation role for the asset advice should also come from them as well
Just to clarify space I think Paul did mention it's part of the
LGPS for the future so in terms of the work plan, you know, it's a running item there on the 14th of January
The one thing we might need to do is go away go away and have a look at the timing of that meeting
Given we need to conclude on this to start the consultation as soon as possible to sign off by the end of March
so we'll come back on that.
Thank you.
So, can we move to the next item now?
Is there any origin business to consider if there is any to move to the next item?
And the next item will be the exclusion of press in public.
Agenda item 10 is in view of the contents of the remaining items
On the agenda, the Committee is recommended to adopt the following motion that under the
provision of section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972 as amended by the Local Government
Access to Information Act 1985, the press and public be excluded from the reminder of
the meeting for the consideration of the section two,
business on the grounds of the contained information
defined as exempt in part one of schedule 12A
to the local government at 1972.
So.
I need to get someone to second that motion.
Yeah, if anybody seconded the motion.
Yes, I second that chair.
Okay, sorry, suicide.
and then pause.