Scottish Borders Council

Agenda item

Information Update

Consider briefing paper by Chief Financial Officer. (Copy attached).

Minutes:

There had been circulated a briefing paper by the Pension & Investment Manager and HR Shared Services Team Leader providing members with an update on a number of areas which were being monitored and where work was progressing.  Full reports on individual actions would be tabled as decisions and actions were required.   In summary:-

 

14.2     Guarantee Minimum Pension (GMP) Reconciliation

            With reference to paragraph 5.2 of the Minute of 8 March 2018, Stage 2 of the GMPReconciliation was progressing by ITM Limited on behalf of Scottish Borders Council (SBC).  As at 23 May 2018 at total of 49.02% of discrepancies had been resolved with a further 28.24% under review.  SBC continued to receive a monthly update on progress from ITM Limited.

 

14.3     General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) Update

            With reference to paragraph 6 of the Minute of 8 March 2018, FAQs for LGPS members went live on the Pension Fund website on 5 June 2018.   A privacy notice in relation to LGPS was currently being prepared and would be available on the website from 14 June 2018. 

 

14.4     Environmental, Social and Governance Policy (ESG)

            With reference to paragraph 7 of the Minute of 8 March 2018, the Pension Fund was reviewing its current policy and investigating how it would monitor the Fund Managers’ approach to ESG against this policy.  An updated policy and a recommended process would be presented to the joint Pension Fund Committee and Pension Board on 13 September 2018.

 

14.5     Scheme Advisory Board

With reference to paragraph 5.4 of the Minute of 8 March 2018, the Scheme Advisory Board met on 26 April 2018, a note of the meeting had been attached to the briefing paper for information.

 

14.6     Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) Infrastructure

SFT had been asked to progress the development of an investment vehicle to allow pension funds to invest in infrastructure including schools, hospitals, etc., and were consulting with all LGPS funds across Scotland.  Mr O’Hara explained that SFT’s consultation had shown that most funds were keen to collaborate to enable infrastructure investment but that SFT had been unable to identify suitable projects.  A report from SFT on the way forward would be issued next week and there would be an update at the next meeting.

 

14.7     Training Opportunities

Baillie Gifford were holding an Investment conference on 25-27 September 2018.  There would also be a Pension Fund officers’ annual training event on 10 September; an agenda would be circulated when available.  The Pension and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) conference would be held on 6 – 8 March 2019.   Pension Fund Members and Board Members were asked to contact Ms Robb if they were interested in attending any of the above mentioned training events. 

 

14.8     Future Meeting Dates

The next meeting was scheduled to be held on 13 September.  There had been a couple of minor changes to meeting dates and they were now confirmed as follows:-

 

Joint Pension Fund Committee and Pension Fund Board:    14 June 2018

                                                                                                13 September 2018

                                                                                                11 December 2018

                                                                                                 7 March 2019

                                                                                                13 June 2019

 

Performance & Investment Sub-Committee                         22 August 2018

                                                                                                29 October 2018

                                                                                                25 February 2019

                                                                                                24 June 2019.

 

 

DECISION

NOTED the information update.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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