Saturday, December 06, 2014

LAPFF Conference 2014: Public Funds & Public Purpose

Yesterday I came back from the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) conference. I will post more on the conference later on.

It was I think the best attended LAPFF conference I have been to which reflects the huge changes and chellenges that the Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) faces and that membership of LAPFF is at an all time high.

The conference opened with a welcome from LAPFF Chair, Cllr Kieran Quinn Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

The Conference Chair was Sir Merrick Cockell, former Conservative leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council and the Local Government Association. He is now deputy Chair of LPFA. I found his remark that "No matter what your politics are you must be concerned about the under supply of housing" interesting.

He also said that we nationally need to invest in infrastructure for not only social purposes, but for sustainable and better returns than gilts & bonds. He believes the future is pooling & collective investments and you don't just need sovereign investment funds such as Qatar for such infrastructure & housing projects.

In the past Sir Cockell has publicly supported the merger of all 101 LGPS into just 5 funds and that this could result in some 300,000 new homes being built every year.

Next was a debate on LAPFF "engagement".

No comments: