Transcript

Transcript

• Good to go, Rachel. All right, okay. - Thank you to you, we're live.
• Right, thank you, Borodai. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Paris Pension Board on the 22nd of May, 2024. We can start, please, with apologies. Rachel, if we have any? - No apologies received, Chair.
• Okay, so we have David Brim, Debbie from the Board, present, so we are, therefore, core eight. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No? Okay, thank you. We can move to the minutes of the Board on the 9th of February, pages 3, 2,
• Ian, Blaine and Debbie were present for this, so in a moment, I'll ask whether you accept that the minutes are a correct record of the meeting, or whether there are any clarifications. The only thing I should point out is that the copy I've got, or the one in front of me, I suppose, right at the end. If you scroll right to the end, please, Chris. Yes, if Rachel could do the honours and relegate me from the esteemed title of County Councillor, I'd be grateful. I know the process generates that automatically, but I really am not worthy. So, subject to that, I'm content with the minutes, but if colleagues have anything they're not happy with, or need an explanation, then please say so. If there's nothing coming, then you can take those, therefore, as the final record of that meeting. Thank you very much. So, we move on to item 4, verbal update. In item 4 of the minutes, Chris, if you could get that, of the pension board meeting minutes. I beg your pardon, yes, for the, yeah, clarification. Hopefully that's it in front, yeah, okay. Can I check the slide? Is the slide okay on screen for everybody? They're fine for me, they're excellent. Thank you. Item 4, the first point, an investment performance internal meeting would be held. I'm pleased to say that was held on the 17th of April. It was a combination of a normal agenda item for pension and investments committee, plus a training event. I think you'd agree with that, Chris? Absolutely, and I thought that the way the session went across was really well received actually by all presenters, so yes, I agree. Yeah, I mean, the very brief background was that I think the inevitable focus that responsible investment was getting had slightly pushed to the background the routine ongoing responsibility for monitoring investment performance. So that combination of active training, as it were, as I agree with Chris, it worked very well. Key focus really on a better understanding and potentially clarification of A, the actuarial discount rates, and B, benchmark returns, coupled with talking us through what contributes to performance attributions relative to benchmark. I'm sorry if it sounds a bit technical for those relatively new to the topic, but I think the outcome was the committee members now have a better understanding and are better able to appreciate the key messages in each quarterly response, quarterly paper from the investment advisors. So that was really, in my view, time well spent. Any observations on that? Any thoughts? Sorry, David, you go first. Oh, apologies, sorry. Just a brief question really. Do you think there's a good understanding of the implications of the discount rates amongst the members? I think it's certainly a lot better now than it was, and I'm not being disrespectful in saying that because it was, as Chris hinted, it was explained in very simple terms, David, and it was very much, and whether Chris had said something behind the scenes, he may well have done, but it really was, it was, well, it was recorded, and I don't know whether Chris, you can take away the thought as to whether that part of the, it was a confidential meeting, obviously, whether there might be anything for the board to learn from, from that particular presentation. That's a good point, yeah. Yeah, it's a top of the head thought, but as David's raised that, they tried hard to avoid technicalities, they tried hard to avoid the inevitable acronyms, and I think also, it's a bit subjective, but I really do believe all members of the Pensions Investment Committee are taking their role really responsibly. They're putting an awful lot of time and effort into, into attending WPP training events, for example, and I think Powis has a proud record of it, attendance at those virtual training events. So my view, David, yes, their understanding is pretty good now, and certainly if that section of the meeting could be cut out and shared in some way or another, Chris, I think the board could benefit from it. Definitely, and possibly internal training as well, because there's a need for officers to understand it as well, so yeah, I'll consider that and share it accordingly. Yeah, and that leads me to a nice hobby horse of mine, which is, in terms of forward planning, some form of accumulation of training documentation, which now would of course be electronic. As you know, Chris has assembled the key policies for online access by the appropriate people, and maybe this bit could be similarly considered for inclusion in that catalogue, as it were. Absolutely, and we've discussed setting up like an online repository or library for training material for some time, and obviously I've got access to all our SharePoint drives internally. The challenges, I guess, it takes time to do. There's things saved in various folders from different times, it's collating all up in the right place, making sure it's still relevant, so yeah, it's a work in progress, I guess, is probably the honest comment on that one, and what I will do is I will make sure that we've all got access to the link with the folder, and then as it's periodically updated, you'll be able to access new items that have fell into it, so providing you've got that high level access to start with, I think that's probably the first step, and I'll make sure that happens. Yeah, anyway, perhaps Chris, if you could take that away and see what can be done, that's great. The only other thing I was going to highlight was item seven. The general code, obviously it's on today's agenda, but at the training event I was co-hosting last week, Nick Gannon from the regulator was present again, and it suddenly struck me, we've got issues like definition of scheme manager within the new general code, and more or less simultaneously with that, we've got a good governance project, which is still desperate, we're desperate for DLUHC to finally give the id seal of approval to, and that's got issues about governance within each fund, particularly senior person with responsibility for the pension fund, but not alone, and it seems to me there's an awful lot in common between the two, and they're all flowing in the same direction, so the process for determining the scheme manager using the TPR quote and some of the good governance implications are our local decisions for powers to be making, so I'm just bringing the two together in that they're very much related, so it's really, perhaps by July we could have an update on progress on those two issues, maybe as a combined thought. Yeah that's no problem, I think when we come on to the actual TPR code item later on, one of the outcomes should be a plan of action, that's what the regulator wants to see, so we can maybe cover that as well as part of that document. Yeah okay, right thanks, so those were my comments on our board meeting on the 9th of February, are there any other issues colleagues would like to raise? Okay thank you, thank you for that, in which case we can move on to item five minutes of the pension investment committee draft minutes on the 22nd of March of this year, and this was of course prior to the investment performance meeting on the 17th of April. Item four, I should just briefly explain why Chris gave the update instead of me, I struggled to get into that meeting, so I'm not 100% convinced it's entirely user error at this end, I think it's a combination of technical challenges and various things, but I'm sure Chris made a good job of it, and I think I got into the meeting just as item five was starting. So the thing I would just bring to the attention of the board, again if you could scroll up a bit please sorry Chris, to the start, I think it's worth mentioning to the board, the presence there of Craig Flynn as deputy head of finance and strategic finance. I'm just wondering whether that changes your reporting line in any way? Not the present note, I'm still reporting directly to the section one by one officer. Okay right thank you for that clarification. Right if I can now scroll down to item six. Oh am I looking at, sorry I'm sorry it's item five Chris, the risk register. Yes the reference to the board undertaking our deep dive dive into the governance pillar. The committee being kept informed of the changes, the committee are very grateful to the board for their efforts in terms of monitoring and suggesting changes in the risk register and almost without exception they're being supported, so that's pleasing for board. In terms of the item seven, the pension section updates, there is some assurances there which the board will be pleased to see about the strengthening the pensions admin team to reflect the additional demands of the cloud and other things. So again that is pleasing. At the top of page 18. Page 18 goes into the confidential session I believe chair. Right yes I think it's okay to say that the updated governance and compliance. So the board really noted that the business plan for 24-27 was approved, it's just simply going to refer to that. Yeah that's fine, I'll see where that might be then. Has this item here as set out is in the open? Yes that's fine. Yeah the business plan there. And preceding items 13 and 14 show the procurement processes that have been ongoing recently both in terms of here and also WPP. So under item 13 you'll see that there is a preferred bidder which was kept anonymous and indeed at the other seven committees within WPP. A preferred bidder as the WPP operator that that be approved and locally for powers the preferred supplier actuarial services be approved. So there has been a lot going on behind the scenes. We don't as a board often look at the procurement process. We have done from time to time. So for me those were the key items coming out of the meeting of the pension investment committee on the 22nd of March. Any other issues colleagues would like to raise on what they see in front of them? Okay thank you so we can move on to item six shows the future board meetings 9th of July. My last one. And are you in a position now or should it come later to talk about the process for a new chair? In fact the process hasn't been completed yet chair it's probably not appropriate to discuss it in the open part of the meeting if that's okay. Except I guess the process has started. That's already I was looking for the process has started. Yes yeah yeah that's fine thank you. So we can now move into the confidential part of the meeting and the board needs to consider in accordance with section 106 bracket 8 of the local pension scheme regs 2013 whether it goes into the confidential agenda with the public and press being excluded as some of the information may relate to financial or business affairs of a particular person or organisation. And colleagues are we content to accept that we need to move into the confidential. Thank you very much indeed so I can now give your time to do the necessary technical adjustments. Thank you chair. [BLANK_AUDIO]