John Mac retires as Branch Secretary of UNISON Tower Hamlets LG branch

I was sent this link to the latest "Tower Power" newsletter by retired Tower Hamlets Housing UNISON comrade (Montrose Matty). John Mac was the branch chair for most of the time I was a member of the branch and my first job in Tower Hamlets was in 1993 at the Columbia Road One Stop Shop in Bethnal Green, where I was a estate officer and John did housing benefits. 

Later I moved to Bow as a Housing officer and became active in the union and was an Assistant Branch Secretary (as well as various other roles such as Labour Link officer, health & safety and treasurer)

Now, those who know us recognise that John Mac and I did not always see "eye to eye" on a number of things, including the need to have an imminent revolution and that revolution is likely to start any time soon in Tower Hamlets Local Government. But I have always accepted that I might be wrong.

However, John was an excellent union case worker and despite our differences we almost always had a polite and good humoured relationship. We worked together during the 1999 month long (successful) Tower Hamlets housing strike, we went on a three peaks walking challenge together and  had a beer in a House of Commons bar, bought by the then, local MP Jim Fitzpatrick. 

I wish John and his partner Phoebe, all the best in their retirement and will miss our sparing in  London regional council and National Delegate conference. 

10th anniversary collapse of Rana Plaza garment factory Bangladesh: 1100 dead

Webinar on Global Company–Trade Union Agreements: A proxy for regulatory compliance & due diligence

As someone who has worked on and off in the borough for 30 years (I was there today) and been a trade union representative for most of this time on the Tower Hamlets Council Pension Committee (then its Pension Board), I can remember the shock of hearing about the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory. 1100 workers dead and many more injured in the quest for super cheap clothing for British and other Western retail stores.

Newham also has a significant Bangladesh community but I am sure that everyone was horrified at these needless deaths. The role of local trade unions is key to avoiding future disasters. I am more than happy to be chairing this important meeting.

Register here

"19 April at 3pm UK / 4pm CET

Next month marks the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Bangladesh, in which over 1,100 garment workers were killed. In the years since the tragedy, several promising initiatives have taken shape, involving collaboration between global labor unions and multinational brands, binding agreements and remedy mechanisms. These are part of an emerging model of supply chain industrial relations, and they include the International Accord for Health & Safety in the Textile & Garment Industry and ACT on Living Wages.

Learning lessons from the failures of “social auditing” and factory certification schemes, this newer model is centered on workers’ rights and company accountability for violations of these rights. Negotiated, binding agreements can also serve as a reliable proxy for investors for regulatory compliance as mandatory human rights due diligence (mHRDD) laws emerge.

And yet, despite its failures, social auditing persists, and proposed mHRDD laws even risk being weakened if such “private voluntary regulation” is allowed to substitute for true due diligence.

Against this backdrop, IndustriALL has commissioned a technical brief that delves into negotiated, binding agreements between business and trade unions, making the case that, besides reducing human rights risks to workers, they can mitigate business risk for investors in the new regulatory landscape. IndustriALL and LAPFF are pleased to invite you to an investor webinar on 19 April at 3pm (UK), where we will present the brief and hear worker and investor perspectives on this model.

The webinar will be chaired by Cllr John Gray from the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum and will include speakers from Due Diligence Design, Aviva Investors, IndustriALL Global Union and Bangladesh Garment & Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF)."

Sunday Times on Suicide Bombers: "I don’t really mind if they don’t leave the country, so long as they blow themselves up – somewhere a decent distance from where the rest of us live. Tower Hamlets, for example"

I have just made my first ever complaint to the press regulator https://www.ipso.co.uk/complain/ about the article yesterday in The Sunday Times about suicide bombers blowing themselves up in Tower Hamlets. 

Not only I have worked in Tower Hamlets for 25 years and have lived next door in the even more diverse London borough of Newham for even longer. I can remember being woken up by the noise of the 1996 IRA bomb in Canary Wharf, which murdered two people and hurt over a 100, some permanently disabled and disfigured (it also wreaked the headquarters of my employers).

I also remember the Brick Lane nail bombing by a Nazi extremist in 1999, which injured 6 people.

Never mind all the residents in Tower Hamlets I have met who lived through the fear and destruction of the second world war Blitz.

Bombing in Tower Hamlets is not a laughing matter.

So this is what was said yesterday in the (paywall) Sunday Times article about suicide bombers, by their long time commentator, Rod Liddle. He said: “I don’t really mind if they don’t leave the country, so long as they blow themselves up – somewhere a decent distance from where the rest of us live. Tower Hamlets, for example.” (my emphasis)

Is blowing up a bomb in Tower Hamlets supposed to be a good thing or somehow inconsequential? So is he saying "normal people" the "rest of us" - don't live in Tower Hamlets? Only muslims and suicide bombers live there - so who cares?

This is not only clearly discriminative against all Muslims but will also only give succour to violent Nazi racists who make constant threats against the Borough. The Sunday Times may soon have blood on its hands.

Ironically, the ignorant Rod Liddle, does not seem to realise that if a bomb went off nowadays in Brick Lane, it would probably kill or maim non muslim tourists who are in search of a decent curry.

People say that the IPSO is a toothless tiger controlled by the industry. If this is not true then now is the time for it to act.

Hat tip Ejaz

Why can't actuaries make their minds up?

This is an article that I wrote recently for Professional Pensions magazine

"John Gray asks why agreement can’t be made on appropriate discount rates for the LGPS.

Currently I sit on three different open defined benefit pension bodies in different employer and employee roles. While I think that all my past and present scheme actuaries are personally wise and wonderful. I just wish they could agree with each other a little more often.

For example, at the moment those of us who are involved in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales are gearing up for the triennial valuation of funds this April (April 2017 in Scotland).

Different actuarial companies hold different "house views" on discount rates. The question is why?
Net Discount

The LGPS is collectively one of the biggest funded pension schemes in the world with some five million members and assets of around £192bn. Bizarrely there are currently 101 different administrative authorities who manage the scheme. It is a major investor in the UK and overseas.

Some 25% of active members do not work directly for local councils. Income from its investments subsidises the cost of providing pensions by some £3bn per year. While nearly all funds have historic deficits due to past underfunding, future employer contributions are capped.

Putting aside for the moment the important arguments that the way we calculate pension liabilities (and therefore deficits) is simply bonkers in these days of negative inflation, QE and ridiculously low gilt prices, we need our actuaries to make up their minds about what is the correct Net Discount Rate (NDR) ‎to apply to this national scheme.

The discount rate really matters. It decides future funding requirements and – most important of all to financially hard pressed councils and other LGPS employers - decides what their contributions will need to be.

NDR is the projected growth of the fund above inflation. So if the inflation is assumed to be 2% and growth is 5% the NDR would be 3%. The sting in the tale is that the lower the NDR the more employers will usually be expected to pay.

Range of discount rates
Quite rightly it is our scheme actuaries who make the final decision what the NDR is after consultation with the administrative authorities. However, currently there are a range of net discount rates across the different funds in the LGPS that go from under 2% to 3.5%. Different actuarial companies hold different 'house views' on discount rates. The question is why.

I could just about understand different schemes having different discount rates but for funds that offer the same scheme benefits with the same extremely strong employer covenant this doesn't seem credible.

Two of the four actuarial firms that value the LGPS tend to have lower NDR than the others. If they all used the same  NDR as the Government Actuaries Department, which is 3%, then it has been estimated that the combined LGPS deficits would be cut by nearly a half, a staggering £19bn. This suggests to me that since the NDR drives contributions many employers are already paying far more than they need to.

The NDR is not the only controversial assumption (otherwise known as an educated guess) made by actuaries. There are different assumptions made and argued over around future inflation, pay increases and life expectancy. There is even a debate about whether or not life expectancy is currently declining.

If liabilities and contributions to the LGPS are over stated by some too prudent actuaries then this will lead to further politically motivated attacks and scaremongering upon the LGPS. We cannot allow the LGPS to be destroyed in the same way as happened to defined benefit provision in the private sector.

John Gray is a pension board member at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. (Personal capacity and hat tip to Glyn Jenkins from UNISON following his recent presentation to the London Pension Forum).

Election of CIH London Regional Board 2015

I have just voted on-line for a new Chartered Institute of Housing Regional Board for London. I had to support my former Tower Hamlets colleague Jan Taranzuk. The only Chief officer I have ever known who use to work in Housing and at the same time live in an inner city estate.

The closing date for receipt of ballots is Wednesday 21 January 2015 at 6pm

Richard "Dickie" Fenn RIP

This afternoon I heard the sad news that Richard "Dickie" Fenn passed away yesterday.  Dickie used to be the Emergency Liaison Officer for Tower Hamlets Council. This wasn't a 9-5 office job.  Over the years (or rather decades) Dickie and his team used to be on call 24/7 to respond in person to floods, fires, boiler failures and any other emergencies that borough residents experienced including terrorist attacks such as the 1996 IRA Dockland bombing. 

I guess that thousands of East Enders have been glad to see Dickie turn up at say 4am in the morning to sort out a flood and clean up the mess.  I never as a housing officer had any complaints at all about him and his team from residents.  Which is astonishing when you consider the nature of his work.

Check this post out on his retirement "Do" in 1999. My favourite "Dickie" story is this one

"In the 1980’s he was a Head caretaker in Bow and he went to visit a property that had been allocated to a new member of his residential caretaking team. As he entered the flat he found the Caretaker’s pregnant wife with two young toddlers in tears at the state of the flat which was damp, mouldy and totally unfit - which should never had been let to anyone – never mind one of his caretakers. Dickie looked around the home and told the wife to pack up since he was moving them. He then arranged for the family to be moved and stormed off to senior managers and successfully demanded a new and decent home that same very day.

The actual caretaker himself wasn’t aware what had happened until he went home that night to find his old home empty".  Needless to say Dickie enjoyed huge loyalty and respect from his staff.

Picture is from a trade union safety inspection I did in 2007 when his team was to be based at the new Sutton Street depot.  We were both arguing with management about the traffic safety management system. 

My sincere condolences to Dickie's family and friends at their loss.

Update: To those who want to pay their respects to Dicky. His funeral will be held next Wednesday 2nd November and the details are as follows:
10:00am　　　　　 Our Lady Immaculate RC Church, 636 Commercial Road, London E14 7HS
11.30am　　　　　 City of London Cemetery, Aldersbrook Road, Manor Park, London E12 5DQ
2.00pm　　　　　　Docklands Sailing Centre, 235a Westferry Road, Isle of Dogs, London E14 3QS
His family have requested that donations be made to Marie Curie Cancer Care