Agenda item

Consider report by Director – Finance and Procurement. (Copy attached.)

With reference to paragraph 7 of the Minute of the meeting held on 13 December 2022, there had been circulated copies of a report by the Director – Finance and Procurement which reviewed and sought approve the Pension Fund’s Governance Review & Stewardship Code Action Plan.  The Action Plan encompassed recommendations from the independently produced Governance Review report and the Fund’s Stewardship Code report.  It provided a high-level plan for how those would be progressed and implemented.  It was accompanied by an annotated schedule for all the Governance Review recommendations.  That outlined proposals for the Committee’s consideration on which were agreed/actioned and those that should not (and why).  It was proposed the work be delivered through a project management approach and the work had been structured into four workstreams.  That would help provide additional focus and momentum, as well as regular project monitoring and reporting.  However, a number of actions and timescales were dependent on the successful appointment to the Pension, Investment & Accounting Manager role.  The Director – Finance and Procurement presented the report and introduced Pat Tomlin, who had undertaken work on behalf of the Pension Fund to review the Governance of the Fund and the Stewardship Code Action Plan.  In response to a question regarding the recommendation to consider appointment of a single officer responsible for managing all pension functions, the Director outlined that the proposed Pensions, Investment and Accounting Manager’s work would be dedicated to working on the Fund.  Administration of the Fund would continue to be the responsibility of the HR Shared Services Manager.  Regarding the appointment of a independent advisor, the Director confirmed that there whilst there was a desire to appoint an advisor resource had not been put in place at the current time.  Work to progress through the Action Plan would continue, and it was hoped that the relevant team would be fully staffed for the start of the new financial year. In response to a question regarding how the schedule and the Action Plan should be interpreted, Ms Tomlin explained that the key documents was the Action Plan.   The purpose of the schedule was to provide an audit trail for all of the recommendations made following the review.  The Action Plan contained the work which had been restructured into work packages, with the schedule in place to back those up.  Regarding the monitoring of the ‘infrastructure/other real assets’ mandate through Lothian Pension Fund, which was currently considered by the Pension Fund Committee rather than the Pension Fund Investment and Performance Sub-Committee, Ms Tomlin explained that the recommendation in the report was to place the responsibility for the monitoring of that mandate, like the other mandates, with the Sub-Committee. 

DECISION

AGREED to:-

(a)        approve the proposals in the ‘Governance Recommendations – Agreement to Proceed?’ schedule contained in Appendix 1 to the report;

(b)        approve the Governance Review & Stewardship Code Action Plan contained in Appendix 2 to the report; and

(c)        note and recognise the potential impact on plan timelines if the recruitment of the Pension, Investment and Accounting Manager was delayed further.