Why Pensions are so important and organising to defend the Local Government Pension Scheme

Today I had a record breaking 3 meetings on Pensions. First I chaired a meeting of Greater London UNISON reps who sit on local Council Pension Boards (see group picture of Forum members above).

UNISON has cross service group national and regional forums on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). The overriding purpose of these forums is to defend and improve the LGPS which 4 million UK workers depend upon and has £250 billion in assets.

We discussed:-

• Support appropriate take up of the 50/50 option, especially for low paid workers who would otherwise leave the LGPS. Point out you still get full life insurance cover with 50/50
• Recruiting and training for new reps; 
• LGPS fund manager Baillie Gifford refusal to talk to trade unions about manufacturer Tesla's appalling  health & safety record.
• Indemnity insurance for Pension board members. The saga continues. Why do some funds have it but others say it is not necessary? 
• How to challenge inaccurate calculations of pensions (a rep reported that there has been some awful big mistakes made); 
• Poor governance arrangements on some London Pension boards; 
• Member representation on the London Pension Fund Authority
• Access to UNISONs financial advice partner Lighthouse; 
• Carbon divestment campaign. Branches and Climate campaigners need to work together. 
• Carbon Neutral investment; 
• New Minister for Local Government Pensions (who knows his stuff); 
• 2018 LGPS PLSA conference; 
• Millions of pounds of savings already made by London Pension funds due to UNISON's work on exposing excessive fees:
• Problems with the London Collective Investment Vehicle (especially with Governance and ESG)
• Disaster. The government wins legal appeal that they can force LGPS to invest in line with the whims of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. What could possibly go wrong?  
• We finished with a minutes silence for the victims of Grenfell. 

Tower Hamlets Pension Committee 14 June 2012

I'm back this evening from the Pension Committee meeting at the Town Hall, Mulberry Place which started at 7.30pm. The usual Pension Investment Panel beforehand had been postponed. I met the new Committee Chair, Councillor Zenith Rahman for the first time, introduced by Councillor Abdal Ullah.

The pension fund performance in the last year has been slightly below benchmark for the 3 months and the year, but for 3 and 5 years has been over the benchmark.

The fund value is currently £830.8 million (up by £35.7 million) over the quarter.  The fund currently has 8 different fund managers. I did ask a question about how we make sure that the Absolute Return manager, Ruffer Total Return Fund, complied with our Statement of Investment Principles. I was assured that the investment panel monitors their compliance. I have must admit that Ruffer is a relatively new manager and I have missed a few of the last meetings due to clashes. I need to check on the Baillie Gifford Absolute Return fund as well.

In response to concern about the performance of certain fund managers I offered the thought that while I believe it is our role to make the highly paid managers of our funds are fully accountable for their performance (and beat them up from time to time if they under perform) we should be mindful that we are here for the long term and we should not pay too much attention to short term swings.

I can't believe that I have been a member of the Tower Hamlets pension scheme since 1993 and sat on the Investment panel since 1996! How time flies when you are enjoying yourself etc etc.

The Pension Committee meetings of your local administrating authority is open to the public although there may be closed parts of the meeting if there is sensitive and confidential information being discussed.