Transcript

Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this evening's meeting. My name is Councillor Martin Bailey, Chair of your Pensions Committee. Members of the Committee are attending this meeting in person at Lambeth Town Hall. However, other members, members of the public and officers have joined us in person and virtually. The meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast live. The recording of tonight's meeting may also be used for quality and training purposes. Whilst we hope everything runs smoothly, please be patient if we hit some charts. We'll see you in the next video. We'll see you in the next video. the first time. If the members have introduced themselves, I will explain how tonight's meeting will go and I will start the roll call by asking members to introduce themselves and also like to welcome Sonia as to our first Pensions Committee meeting as our new Staff Director. Please introduce yourself, Sonia Barolich, I'm the new Staff Rep. Peter? Peter, what do you want to do? Peter, what do you want to do? Simon Hannah, the Trade Union Rep. Thank you very much. We've had apologies from councillor Ainsley and councillor Simpson and councillors Kaye and councillors Tiedemann are running slightly a bit late. Will join us in the meeting. Can I ask key officers in the room to introduce themselves? My name is Saul Enricio, African Head of Treasurer and Patients. I'm Pete Hasketh, I'm the Deputy Director of Finance. I'm Zena Cook, I'm Corporate Director of Finance. Andrew Pavlew, Principal Law and Governance. I'll do officers on the screen first and then come back to you. Good evening, I'm Linda D'Souza, Assistant Director for Payroll and Pensions. Anyone want to? Tony and Sarah, did you want to? No, neither from all. That's fine. And then Sandy? So I'm Sandy Dixon, I'm from Mercer, the Investment Consultant of the Fund. I'm Stephen Law, I'm the Fund Actuary from Angers-Robertson. Thank you very much. So reports which are to be debated this evening will be presented by an officer who will highlight the main issue. Members of the committee may then ask questions and we will debate the reports. So agenda item one, do members have any human interest they wish to declare on items to be considered this evening? That's grand. Item two, we'll turn to the public minutes of the previous meeting. Do members agree that the minutes for the meeting on the 9th October are accurate and true record of discussion? Simon? I've got some, um, back to the minute, please, please. Sure. And I've got these written out, so if we agree that there's changes then I'm happy to set them in. And as you table them now, have we, has anyone seen these, just so you can make it accurate? No, no, I haven't been able to set the circuit to advance chair. Okay, are they substantial? We're going to go through them, but yeah. Substantial? Yeah, just members will really help in future any amendments we can try and get into democracy ahead of time. Yeah, I will do that next time, I promise. Right. Right, um, so just, um, I raised in general update six the question on the, um, rest of the meeting. I asked if. Appendix 4.5, uh, the LBR pension fund exposure to Israel and Palestine version two will be taken together with the unison and community delegation item. And that was confirmed. When we move, when we move the, the, the appendix to item seven. Yes. Yeah. So, so just to put that in, I did raise in general update six, but it could be in six or the beginning of seven, but. I think that was agreed. Fine. Yep. Okay, that's good. Um. The other thing I wanted to raise was, um, I think we need a bit of clarity on what Councillor Ainsley was asking for. Um, Councillor Ainsley, uh, requested the committee to contact the managers of the investment funds. Can I ask where you have, what's the committee for you? Right. So this is in the discussion. Um, so 0.7 agenda. Item seven. Yeah. Item seven. Yeah. Yeah. So this would be somewhere on page four and five. Councillor Ainsley raised a request. That the committee contact the managers of the investment funds, which might include holdings in companies, 112 companies. Uh, which operates the unified territories. And that this request. Was denied because the argument was that it was not on the agenda. Because Councillor Ainsley asked if it had been put to a vote and. The chair decided that it should not be put to a vote because it wasn't her. Yeah. Okay. How? And so is this, how is this recorded currently in the minutes? I can't see that. This is, you would add one that added into the minutes. Yes. Okay. I mean, I looked opposite, but also without Councillor, for their recollections, but without Councillor Ainsley also his own recollections of the ask, it's actually impossible to make that amendment. I feel. I don't think we need the committee member in question to make the amendments. I don't recall the conversation going in that direction, but I'm asking officers. Did you just record it with the deck over? Yeah. So. That's actually really helpful if members can advise in advance if there's changes to the minutes that give time for officers to do that. Okay. I'm happy to do that in future chair. I'm still very new to this committee, so I'm still learning how it goes. So my memory of that is that Councillor Ainsley made a specific request that we write to the fund managers in particular funds which might be exposed to these companies in question. We asked them about if it was possible for them to divest. And this was said from the decision from the chair was that it was not a competent item because it was not an item on the agenda. Okay. So you said. Yes. Well, the indications have not proven the minutes tonight in that sense, and holding them until next meeting. Okay. Okay. Giving time to therefore actually review what action is in the meeting to make them. And I don't feel we can make them and. Okay. Changes and then agree the minutes, the changes to the minutes. What the changed minutes at the next meeting. Yeah. Are there any wide implications if the minutes aren't approved tonight for the items on the last meeting? It's possible to do subject to checking. Okay. It could be amended or otherwise, just so that we can, just as a suggestion. Members agree subject to that confirmation, then the amendment will be made. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll tell you, I thought we're holding that point. Are there any other ones you want to pick up, Simon? Okay. So. I mean, this is just to make sure that the minutes are accurate for what was actually discussed. That's true. I think that might be it. I mean, I guess. Yes. I mean, if everyone thinks that the rest of the minutes is accurate, then. Okay. So subject to the second point you raised, which you will provide to democratic services in terms, in forms that can make that record check. Is everyone happy to agree the public minutes for last meeting? Yep. Thank you very much. And we'll do the part two minutes at start. Matter of writing. Matter of writing. Yeah, we can do it in item three. That's okay. We'll do the part two minutes to start part two as well. Right. Thank you very much. For the record, Councillor Tiedemann has now come into the room. Can you introduce yourself, Councillor Tiedemann, and declare if you've got any pecuniary interests? Apologies for lateness. Councillor Martin Tiedemann for the Planned Park Board, I have no pecuniary interest. Thank you very much. Item three, matters of rising and work plan. Peter. Back to item seven of the last meeting. I mean, in response to question members and officers highlighted that the second point is, the fund is about being able to have investments which members of the fund, the staff of the council and other people who pay into the Lambeth Pension Fund are happy with it. A reminder that actually everyone on this committee who actually represents anyone who has any investment in the fund actually were not happy with it. And so actually we were there. I've sat on this committee and this predecessor for over 25 years now. And normally I'm happy to say it's consensus here. Occasionally I disagree with the opinion, but I have never been ashamed of what we came with. And to hear the fallacious arguments that came up from members of the Labour Group at the last meeting I think were quite shameful. And I just want that to be noted because, you know, I totally disassociate myself from the members of the Labour Group and the way that they actually put this display themselves at the last meeting. I think it was disgraceful. Delacious. Very noted. Thank you, Peter. Does anyone ask any questions on the work plan in the agenda? Matter arising from the minutes, just some clarity on what we're doing in terms of the investment strategy, because it says in the, on page two bullet point three, it says officers stated Lambeth was due a new strategy in March 2025. Does that mean that the next meeting of this committee will be taken up with the investment strategy? Yes. Okay. Because I think someone said it might be later in the year, but I just need to know what the agenda of the committee is. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They'll come to the April committee meeting. That's, that's fine. We're good. Uh, item four. We're after notes, the business plan tracker. Any, any questions from members committee on that at all? Anyone can ask is, are we still awaiting guidance from, uh, MSCLG? Yes. Thank you very much. Um, and it is, uh, um, yeah, and at this point I should actually flag on the, uh, the investment strategy, the investment consulting services, uh, ten, retender is, is underway. And that is a miracle on my behalf, um, in terms of not sending back the complete evaluation forms, uh, as people wanted at the timeframe. So that is underway, but, uh, is still underway. That is, will be underway and will be completed by the end of the financial year. Um, just update meeting members on that as we have, I have raised it a number of times that I feel. Okay. Uh, I just have number five investment performance. Um, members will remember to save a duplicative conversation, um, in public and private session. Um, members may want to, members may want to hold the majority of the questions to a private session if they want to get into, into some of the weeds in detail. Um, but we still, we still do report public in the public session on our investment forms of Q3. So I'll ask Saul, um, Head of Treasury and Pencils to introduce this report. Good evening. Um, I think that's a very brief, good comments from me. Um, I know that the fund, in terms of the benchmarks. Sorry, can I ask officers to speak up, please? I know that the microphones might be able to hear you, but I can't. Thank you. Will. Um, uh, the remarks that I was going to is that I know that the fund of heating its benchmarks, but we are in the right trajectory. Uh, the fund, uh, increased, uh, in this quarter that we're reporting to, uh, from the previous quarter by about 0.6%. Which is good news. We are heading towards our benchmarks, but not yet quite there. Uh, primarily the reason why we haven't actually hit that is that our property portfolio is still, uh, performing to the expectations. Uh, I know that we have terminated the commercial, uh, segment of that. Um, but that is, uh, we, uh, kind of process, um, and also emerging market, uh, portfolio. Well, however, um, it is on the right trajectory in the sense that every quarter we have been kind of increasing on our market value. So hopefully we should be able to catch up with the benchmark, um, performance metrics. Um, just also to highlight that our exposure to the UK, um, stood at 21.8%. Uh, that's roughly about 389.5 million of the total portfolio. Um, and the actual funding level as at the end of September, uh, stood at about 117%, uh, which is a surplus of roughly 260 million, um, chair. That's all sort of the key points that I want to highlight. Um, and when we're in costumes or invite. And thank you. I think it's issue just to heart to members, um, actually power 2.7 on our allocations to investment strategy. Um, it is, it is, it is in Paris 2.8 to 10, but we did. Members will remember the allocation, the, um, agreement we made at the end of last committee meeting in terms of exposures to further private equity, private markets and corporate bonds, uh, which should hopefully, which should help us achieve that re-balancing against our strategic allocation by year end. Peter. Yeah, I mean, this is the re-balancing thing. I understand sort of why we model these sectors, but it just seems very strange to me that when taking money away from those sectors who are actually performing well and giving it to those sectors which are underperforming. And they've been underperforming for a substantial amount of time now. And it's not like, oh, they've just underperformed for the last couple of quarters. So they'll bounce back. I mean, they've been consistently underperforming over a persist over the, uh, one, three and five year things, uh, timescales. And so taking money away from the bits that are actually doing well and putting it in the bits where actually we're obviously getting it wrong. It seems to be upside down to me. I know it fits in with the strategy. But then, so I question the strategy that why we're moving money away from bits where actually we've chosen the correct and given it to areas where somehow or other we've got the wrong people doing it. I'm not saying the sectors are wrong, but we certainly got the wrong people doing it because they're consistently underperformed over all periods of time. Question. That's the standing loops. Yeah. So I've been to pretty much speed. So rebalancing you've taken from emerging market equities. So you've taken 5% from emerging market equities. You've got that to the UK corporate bonds. So that is a new actual asset. That's all the fibers that is new. Emerging markets has done okay, but I wouldn't say it's been fantastic. Also, just thinking about where the fund is, the funding level of the fund is around about 117%. Yeah. The last valuation was still pretty strong at 98%. Clearly they're in a strong financial position in taking monies out of emerging market equities, which we expect to generate long term returns. Yeah. But with risk and volatility, I think we all understand emerging markets can be a bit volatile. So investing those proceeds into UK corporate bonds. Much more boring. I'm going to be pretty honest here. You're lending to, you know, high blue chip companies with low default rates or low expectation of defaults. So it's kind of part of that strategy to, you know, lend money sensibly to UK companies. Well, sorry, global companies listed in the UK, I should say. Certainly. So that all meets the strategy. So I would kind of push back each bit. So we're taking from the financial management to the unperforming management because UK corporate bonds we haven't invested in before yet. Okay. That's one thing. So we're not putting in the other bits we're underperforming. So the other bit that the chair raises, recommitting to private equity. Yeah. So over the long term, private equity absolutely has delivered. Oh, it's performed. I thought so. Yeah. Strong returns. Maybe in sort of more recent times when you get some FX fluctuations, it's maybe unformed. I think over the long term, private equity has added value. So I think that rebounds it. It makes complete sense. I've always argued we should be actually putting more into private equity, not less. It's just unfortunate we don't have any of that here in the UK and we have to put it in the States. I mean, that's been one of my arguments for years. One of the funds is a European part of UK exposure. So there will be UK, but you are right. It's perhaps not as high as maybe community might decide. Thank you, Sandy. A question which we see if you want to answer in public, we could do in private session. It might be helpful just in terms of posts, obviously, calls for any terms of some of the real, real term. Gilly's questions in terms of how LDR and how that's maybe as a broad brush kind of impacted or. Yeah, so I'll have to ask that before I get to that. I know this is performance today in September, which feels about our date now. But I feel I should go through page 26 to really get a little bit more. I will then bring us up to dates as much as I can to where we are today. And I'll touch on it. So on page 26, you've got the next fund. And I'm going to focus slightly more on the three and five years, which is slightly more negative because the last year is actually very positive. So I think it's important to focus on that because we are a long term investor as a fund. So really care about the long term returns, not just that one year. The key thing for me is looking at the benchmark term and then the fund return. Now, even pulling the direction of travel, this committee will continue to be responsible for setting the high level strategic allocation of the fund as a very broad proxy. That is what the benchmark roughly should be returning. So you're deciding to invest in equities, to invest into property, to invest into private markets. That should be given over three years. You're looking around three and a half percent per annum strategic expectation. Five years, 5.4 percent. So that's sort of the key critical driver of return returns is that strategic asset allocation. If I then take that sort of 3.5 percent, 5.4 percent, compare it to the discount rate. The discount rate in the last valuation was 3.4 percent per annum. So this three years is a perfect overlap, but it's probably slightly disappointing. You'd expect to outperform the prudent basis of the actuary. Actually, we'd achieve that 3.5 percent, achieve what the actuary wanted and we'd probably be OK and fairly satisfied. If you think about the five year at 5.4 percent, you know, actually, that's pretty decent. We've taken a prudent amount of risk and we've outperformed at the value of the long term. So what's let the fund down is the implementation of the strategy by the investment managers. So whilst the benchmark and strategic asset allocation have been expected to deliver 3.5 percent over the last three years to end of September, it's actually returned minus 0.7 percent per annum. So it's not the strategy that's sort of not worked. It's the implementation of that strategy. So it's the underlying global equity managers that have been selected, haven't met the benchmark. It's the emerging market manager who, again, hasn't met the benchmark. It's the property managers who haven't achieved the objectives. So it's just to really delineate between your strategic asset allocation which you retain, and that implementation which is basically being pushed towards the pool a bit more. It's that implementation phase that has failed. We've run to managers. We've run to managers. To put it, yes, they haven't worked out that well. But over the last five years, over the last five years, 4.4 percent, and then if you include private equity, 4.6 percent, that's in excess of what the actuarial evaluation needs. So that's a bit more positive. But certainly the last three years has been underwhelming by your, to say the least. Last year, a bit more positive, sort of 11 percent at the end of September for the whole fund. Did underwhelming benchmark, which obviously is disappointing, but actually 11 percent. You've got that every single year for the next 10 years, 15 years. Fantastic returns. And over the last quarter, sort of 14 percent. Again, that's sort of in line with what you'd expect. If you've got 1 percent every quarter for the rest of the time, I think you'd be fairly happy with that as a pension fund. Bring it up to date a bit more because I know this is 30 September. I don't have all your manager stuff, but I do know what's happening in markets. Whether you like it or not, the market reached rather positively to the news of the US presidential election. I think, yeah, basically people are more sweet. Trump is going to help them. So the share prices and the dollars also strengthened as well over that time period. So if I look at your global equities and the benchmark, the benchmark over the three months from end of September to end of December was up about 6 percent plus. So I expect your equities to have done fairly well. Other asset classes, not quite as well. And in particular, going to a point share about LDI, which is ultimately UK government debt index link guilds, which we hold to manage the risk. So it's got a real link to liabilities. Those are supposed to have negative returns over the period. So to the end of December, you're probably looking at minus 7 percent there or there about return. And then also year to date, you've seen yields rise, which means your value has fallen. And there's two things really been driving that. The first one is, again, linked to Trump. A lot of his policies are expected to be inflationary, which means that central banks are likely to hold interest rates higher for longer. When yields stay higher for longer, that means your present value of the bonds falls. There's also been a little bit of a UK as well impact given sort of Rachel Reeves like happy saying we're going to borrow a little bit more than you perhaps expected in order to find growth. But really, the predominant driver is actually being more the US than UK government. But to be clear, the DMO is expected to issue more than the market thought previously. So that did have an impact as well. So sitting here in April looking at performance, the equity benchmarks will certainly be up. I very much hope the equity managers will also up as well. Others will probably be a bit more muted, but sort of LDI, yeah, I'd anticipate nature returns. Trying to bring that all together, though, given weightings, I would expect positive performance to 31st December, maybe around 1%. But again, that is very dependent on the managers achieving the next 1%. Thank you. Which members have any other questions to ask? Well, just on the underperformance of the fund managers, what's the scope there in terms of the powers of the committee to change them? Yes. I mean, obviously, I'm still going to use the committee in many ways. So what's the scope of tolerance for underperformance with our money? How long do we let that carry on for? At the last meeting, when we talked about shifting investments, we were told that it can take years to leave funds. So I'm wondering, are we locked in with these underperforming managers now? Is there things we could do? So to address that first question. So there's a property investment you have with Invesco, so that's European property. So these are large commercial properties. So exiting that does take time. I'm sure we've all sold houses and know how challenging the timeframes could be on that. And that's just your single home rather than a large office block sort of thing. So that is locked in. So that's taking time. We've spent the redemption. We'll get money back eventually. These listed global expertise, you can trade very frequently. So there's no walking period you can get out of those. Contrary to what chair suggested at the last meeting. So that would be the entirety of holdings rather than any one individual holding though. So in terms of that, so Dubscope are given calling. Your options are pretty much whatever it has of active equities. It's whatever managers else have offer. The other alternate is going passive. Just investing passively and just basically tracking the market. One thing you should be very conscious of with that is currently your investment managers integrate environmental social governance considerations when they're making these investments. The Bailey Gifford mandate, for example, is Paris aligned. So they do have this decarbonisation built in to, you know, the investment remit. If you went passively and you just buy the S&P market, the market, the level of RRI, so responsible investment integration, will be reduced. So you do have to be conscious that there's no perfect solution for any of these. You have to understand the competing objectives of sort of return, PHG integration. So in terms of reading managers, absolutely. I think they've been unperforming, so you should be reviewing them. In terms of what you have available, it's what's on the SIV and then passive offerings, which, as I say, do you have some drawbacks? Any further questions? No? Great. Can we note the recognitions set out on page 15 then, please? Agenda item 6, risk register update. I'll ask Saul and Linda Souza, Assistant Director of Payroll and Pensions. Thank you, Chair. Not much to say on this one. I don't think that we do not have any rated risks. Sorry, what page? We are on page 37. That's it. Great. I am. Rated risks. I'm not sure if there is anything you would add to that, but that's all from the Chair. I'll just briefly add, since the publication of this report to the committee, there is a slight change and there will be slight change reported to the Board and that's just in respect to PA25. Because we've reached the conclusion last week in terms of the pension fund administration software system. So that has all been signed and a new contract is in place now. So that's completed. So that won't be mentioned before. In the report that comes to you next most probably. That's the only change. Thank you. Thank you Linda. If the committee members have any other questions on the list register update, I'd like to ask. No worries. Grant. If committee members agree then to the recommendations laid out on page 37. Agreed? Great. Thank you very much. I'll take that as consensus. Agenda item 7. General updates. Can I ask Sol to introduce the report, please? And that's on page. Thank you Chair. A couple of observations from you on this paper. I just welcome our new staff. Ref. As election process has concluded. Also to. That's my school. Can you speak enough? OK, thank you. Well done. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. That. During. In the interim period. Before the last. Between the last committee meeting and this meeting. The government did ask for. Put out a consultation. GPS feed for the future. Which the fund participated in. And the chair helpfully helped us again. To submit that on time on the 16th of January. We are waiting for the outcome. Of what that is. Is. But. As. Sandy. Our consultant. Outline earlier on. A lot of the responsibilities. That this committee has been carrying. Might be pushed to the pool. And then we'll have to navigate that new. Dimension that we'll find ourselves in. Going forward. But we are waiting for the government's response. To that consultation. The other thing that we did ask. During the. Intervening period is. For both committee and board members. To participate in an online survey. To. For us to gather as a fund. At the level of our skills and knowledge. To help. In. Devising a better. Training strategy. For us to. To be able to. Carry out our duties. Onto this fund. The appendix is attached. To the. Board. And. Special body. Better well. Passion committee. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. As well. But there is a lot of room for improvement. And. Kindly make time to participate. Because it does help. If. We can gather. As a broad range. Of your. Views. On this. Sort of service. To help. The fund really. Provide better service. Than we are able to. Um. That's. That's. That's all sort of the key items that I wanted to. Highlight on the general appellate. Chair. Yeah. Thank you. So I think. Noting the. Knowledge assessment. Uh. The. Pensions board chair and I have had a conversation to work out. How we can kind of make best use of. Um. Everyone's time in terms of. Advance of the training requirements. Uh. And also. Isn't it is noted. Committee. The committee membership. Uh. Does have a higher turn. Um. And. Uh. The board. Uh. Is noted. Committee. The committee membership. Uh. Does have a higher turn. Um. And. Uh. The board. Uh. And. The board membership does. To be honest as well. Which. Um. Well. And more recently had a significant turn. Um. Which will lower. The score that please do. Will engage with those. But I am. I am. I do. Yeah. We do want to find the right balance of. Appropriate levels of training. That is. Is accessible. And it doesn't feel like a hindrance. Within. Either within meetings or. Fine at right time. There was a. Um. I think a short session before this committee meeting. For some. For our sub members. Um. And actually Sonny. Quite good to engage with you. In terms of. Your kind of your training program. And therefore. What kind of works and doesn't work. As a really brand new person. Well. Questions Peter. Yeah. No. It's on that training thing. I mean. It is vastly important. I mean. Uh. I think we're supposed to have one or two days training per month. Each. If we're sitting on this committee. Which I know has never been achieved. And I can't believe it ever would do. But it. It's very important. This training takes place. And that we all do it. And that we're all in the same place at the same time. Because we actually need to hear. What each other actually. So that we all have the same sort of song book. That thing. And. That unfortunately. It's been a very long time since we've been managing. I mean. It's fitting in. And people not being around. Whatever. I mean. We just have to manage it somehow. So I mean. There has to be. Probably some compulsion. Because we're just not doing it. I mean. We had the mandatory training before people were allowed to be on this board. And people just didn't bother to turn up. And I turned up to a couple of them. And you know. And I was the only person there. You know. And this just gets. No. It's a nonsense. I mean. What's the mandatory training. If people don't turn up to it. We're handling 1.7 billion pounds. And we're making serious decisions. And it is the law. We have to. We are. So trustees of this money. We have to have some vague idea of what we're talking about. So we're not just proverbial BSing. You know. And this isn't just me going on. We have to do it. It's the law. And we. As a. As a committee. Woefully fail. So I plead to the chair. To. Put some instruction. That we are obliged. To comply with. I don't know. What powers. You have to do that. But if you have it. Do it. Yeah. As they. The board chair and I. In discussion. So we can make the best. We actually have to do. Yeah. I agree. We've been talking about it. For year on year on year. And never actually got. Occasionally we've got a whack together. But you know. There's been a few occasions. We've actually. Had some very productive sessions. But I can't remember one. For a very long time. Okay. Because I've been on this. For over 25 years. Are there any other questions. From committee members. Oh. So. If. Through you chair. If you're. Content. I'm happy to take that away. As an action. For. Discussion with you. And the chair of the board. To look at. In the widest sense. You know. What the. What the needs assessment is. Because we have new. New members as well. I'm new to the committee. I think it's important. That we kind of. Take the opportunity. We're about to embark on. A new investment strategy. So there will be specific training. And. And learning for that. And again. Working with our advisors. Happy to take that way. As an action. And then bring something back. Quite comprehensive. Perhaps for the April meeting. If. Chair. That's really. Thank you. So. It's like. I think that's a really. Good idea. I mean. I'm thinking about. The next meeting. If it is going to be. A whole strategy. Investment strategy meeting. Um. Well. Uh. Maybe we could do. You know. Like half a day's training. In advance of that. I mean. I don't know what to expect. From an investment strategy meeting. Or how it functions. Or how it works. I don't know. If. Maybe we could kind of link it. In that sense. Like before the meeting. Yeah. I encourage you to do. Put that plan together. Yes. There will be changes to the training requirements. Coming out throughout this financial year. From that consultation that the chair spoke about earlier. And Saul spoke about. When implementing the good governance aspects of it. We also expect a new set of knowledge and skills framework to come out at some point. And. Probably late in the year. Because they need to know what the outcome of that pensions review is. And. So. I encourage you to get started on it. So. Be flexible. Because changes are coming. Adds to it. Yeah. Yeah. I think. From my perspective. It's. From my experience would be that we. We need to kind of. Almost have a governance review. To have that assessment of where we are. And where we're going to get to. But to create a framework. So it has the flexibility. To respond to what comes out. Of. The changes that we know are coming. In terms of investment strategy. I suppose. And again. I'm getting up to speed. But my assumption. My expectation is that the April meeting. Is kind of the beginning of that discussion. So. You know, an investment strategy. Takes time. You know, we need to deliberate. We need to consider. So I. I would suggest that April is the beginning. Of how we are going to develop. Our investment strategy. As opposed to a once and done. We're going to discuss it in a meeting. And again, I. I'd suggest that as part of our sort of. Governance review assessment. We make very clear. What we will be doing to develop. And agree that investment strategy. And then align that to. What the requirements will be. In terms of support for you as the committee members. In informing that. That discussion and that decision. Again, sure. If that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. I certainly much agree with that. But I. I support, you know. At least half day or something. In advance. In advance of that meeting. So that. You quickly do. Members got some idea. What we're talking about. And what the strategy. Involved. Much more of a broad overview. Rather than the nitty gritty of it. Which will come later. Which we actually need to understand. As well. None of it's instead. It's all as well. I was just about to say. Can I cover what I was going to say. We're not going to be bringing. Like an investment strategy review. To April. To sort of rub a stamp. It would be very much. It's actually sort of training. Going look. The valuation is set. First of March. And we'll have an idea. Of where markets are. Obviously. But Stephen. Got to go through this valuation. Those results. Aren't going to be known. Until the autumn. Sort of time. So I think April. Very much. We understand roughly. Where we are. You know. We've got invested. What's our committee's views. On different asset classes. ESGR integration. Moving markets. Those sort of things. Just to make sure that. Yeah. Committee's views. Are understood. At the outset. And then as. We get valuations. We understand. What the target is. The investor strategy. Will develop over the next. Sort of nine months. So to speak. In conjunction. With valuation. The request is. I've never done a. Investment strategy before. So I take your point. That we're going to. It's going to take it slow. We're going to start it. And so on. But it would just be good. To get an idea. Of what it looks like. Maybe. Maybe sit down. And look. Like look at the last one. And then someone could go through that. With us. And we could say. This is what this means. This is what this means. Because otherwise. I don't know. Like. It'd be good. If we could at least. Have a bit of an understanding. Of how it might function in advance. But yeah. You can. See you. Happy to take that away. Certainly. My experience elsewhere. We're actually. Mercersworthy. Advisors. And again. I'm assuming. That will be very much. An introduction to. What is an investment strategy? What does it. What does good look like? Etc. Me. There's. Elsewhere is that. Do an investment strategy day. And actually. You know. Mercers. Would then take you through. The principles of. You know. And for us as officers as well. Because things changed since the last time we did the strategy. So having. Having that. I think again. If we take that away. To discuss. Because again. The board will be interested in understanding what we're doing. And how we're doing it. Not necessarily commenting on the strategy itself. But how we're discharging our function. So I'm sure we can pick that up as part of that wider government. So. Any questions? I think. And just. To everyone. On the consultation. Just to get members aware. The consultation did open after the last committee meeting. And closed before this meeting. Which is why. Got the. Submitted response. Essentially. Which was done in consultation. But officers. In consultation with. Other London. By the London Civ. And the. LGA's response. As well. It wasn't. It wasn't. Just. The brainchild of me. To calm members. Any concerns. But. If there's no further questions. Can we. Agree items. The recommendations for item 7. As set out on page 47. Yeah. Thank you very much. Uh. Item 8. Is the draft annual report. It is 83 to 258. So. Thank you chair. Um. Nothing much to note here. Just. To. Say that. The. 2223. Statement of accounts. As. The draft annual report. The. 2223. 24. Is ongoing. Um. Think that's all that I have to say on that. That's. Rand. I mean. Yeah. The. The. Is attached. As there's a question. Special questions on it. Yeah, it's not worth a statement. The picture on the back cover is ever so out of date. Vauxhall doesn't look anything like that. I mean, there's only one tower in Vauxhall. I think it was vaguely contemporary. That's before Finance Capital got involved in Vauxhall in spite of redesigning it. Yeah, but I mean, the river doesn't look anything like that anymore. I mean, I just got to that. I thought, oh! I'm sure we can delve into the Council's documentary. It is the same picture as the third, I think, of the last two or three annual reports. So, you know, we've moved on. 3324 accounts will be with us imminently. I don't know what the form is with the committee, but if there are photographs you would like to suggest, I'm sure we can. Well, it's the same one, but current. Fine. It's a nice view, it's the river, it's our river, you know, it's the whole number of bridges, you know, it's us. When existence is sent to the best warden number, so we're happy to update that one. That's fine. Any other questions or comments from committee members on the annual report? Grant. Can I see agreement for recommendations set out on page 83 for item 8, then, please? Thank you very much. That concludes the public part of the meeting. So, I now move that press and public be excluded from the remains of the meeting due to the likely disclosure of exempt information in that section, having considered the public interest test. Can I say a show of hands to confirm that we've been in public? Thank you very much. So, we will now close the public meeting with the Pensions Committee. Thank you and good night to all our viewers, attendees, officers and others who attend them. If you may actually please exit the meeting and join the separate exempt meeting invocation. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night.