UNISON was quoted in last week MJ attacking Council pensions schemes who delegate investment management to one single officer. There 8 funds that do this out of the 90 odd (some very) LGPS including the huge Surrey Country Council pension scheme (I have UNISON members who belong to it). This sort of practice was outlawed in the private sector after the Robert Maxwell “Daily Mirror” pension scandal. Private sector pensions schemes now have to have 1/3 representation by beneficiary trustees by law.
Many other Council pension schemes do little better than the single officer schemes since they still have no meaningful representation of scheme members on their investment panels or committees whatsoever.
There are other significant problems with the failure to separate pension and council bank accounts and the issue of co-mingling!
I think that these Councillors and chief officers are taking completely unnecessary and enormous personal risks by allowing such poor governance. Why they do this continues to astonish me?
One day, as sure as eggs is eggs, somewhere - it will all blow up in their faces.
Thankfully my scheme has started to introduce member representation with voting rights.
I have covered this issue just a few times already (here, here and here).
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