The Local Pension Board of Barnet Council met virtually at 6.00pm on Tuesday 11th February 2025. The meeting was scheduled to discuss a range of matters relating to the governance, administration, investment performance and accounts of the London Borough of Barnet Pension Fund. A key item on the agenda was a report from BDO, the fund’s external auditors for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years.

Annual Accounts and External Audit Update

The Board was scheduled to receive an update on outstanding audits of the Pension Fund’s accounts. These accounts had not been signed off for three years, prompting a backstop date of 13th December 2024 for their completion. BDO’s Audit Completion Report for the 2020/21 financial year indicated that they were anticipating issuing a disclaimer opinion on these accounts. This was attributed to outstanding work on a number of areas including:

“unauthorised” secondary pension contribution payments (discussed elsewhere on this agenda) [which] is not complete and BDO are considering use of their wider powers on this matter.

BDO’s Combined Audit Planning and Completion Reports for the 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years also indicated that BDO would not be able to complete the required work by the backstop date. It was therefore anticipated that these accounts would also be signed off with disclaimed opinions.

Report on the compliance of the Barnet Pension Fund with The Pensions Regulator's new Code of Practice

The Board was scheduled to receive a report by Aon, summarising their assessment of how the Barnet Pension Fund complies with The Pensions Regulator’s new General Code of Practice. The new code came into effect on 27th March 2024. Aon’s assessment, attached as Appendix A to the report pack, identified a number of areas where the Fund did not achieve full compliance with the new Code.

One of the areas identified for improvement was the Fund’s governance, with only one out of 30 modules relating to governance achieving full compliance. The report stated that there were a number of gaps that needed to be addressed including:

• Training for both Pension Board and Committee members.
• The appointment of a Chair for the Pension Board.
• A published conflicts of interest policy.
• The process for delegating decision-making.

The report also identified a number of other areas for improvement relating to funding and investment, information handling and reporting to TPR. The report proposed that Officers develop an action plan to address the key areas of non-compliance with TPR expecting an action plan to be in place by the end of March.

Prepayments and subsequent repayments between the Council and the Pension Fund

The Board was scheduled to be informed that Kevin Bartle, the Executive Director of Finance (s151 officer), had held a briefing with the Monitoring Officer, the previous Interim Executive Director of Resources (s151 officer) and the Board Chair, Geoffrey Alderman, regarding an unspecified “serious matter”. The Board was told that a detailed paper would be presented at the next Board meeting which would

take the Board through the key issues and implications.

Pension Fund Risk Registers

The Board was scheduled to receive an update on the Pension Fund Risk Registers. Following the previous meeting, the Board had requested that the risk register be reviewed to ensure that risk ADM18, “Failure to produce compliant annual report and accounts within deadline” was adequately rated. Officers had reviewed the risk but had not updated the risk score, stating that they believed it would likely reduce once the 2023/24 report and accounts have been signed off. A new risk was added to the register, risk ADM21, “Unauthorised payments into and from the Fund”, which was given a risk score of 6.

Update on the Local Government Pension Scheme (England and Wales): Fit for the Future Consultation

The Board was scheduled to receive an update on the UK government's “Local Government Pension Scheme (England and Wales): Fit for the Future” consultation, which had closed on 16th January 2025. The consultation set out proposals aimed at improving the management and investment strategies of LGPS funds. The consultation focused on three key areas:

• Asset Pooling, with proposals including that AAs fully delegate investment strategy implementation to pools, and that all assets be transferred under pool management by March 2026.
• Local investment, with proposals that AAs include local investment objectives in their investment strategies.
• Governance of funds and pools, with proposals that AAs prepare a governance and training strategy, and that Pension Committee members have appropriate knowledge and understanding. Officers had submitted a response on behalf of the Pension Fund Committee to the consultation on 14th January.

Administration Performance Report and update on other administration and legislative matters

The Board was scheduled to receive a report on the performance of the pension administration service delivered by the West Yorkshire Pension Fund, which administers the Barnet Pension Fund. In December, WYPF had processed 786 cases with 91.7% of cases being completed within the agreed Key Performance Indicators targets. It was reported that there may be a drop in performance in January and February due to a planned upgrade of WYPF’s administration system. The Board was scheduled to be informed that Officers would be undertaking a ‘push’ to get more members registered on the WYPF My Pension member portal.

Data Improvement Plan and Historical Leavers

The Board was scheduled to receive an update on the progress on the correcting of the member data and the historical leaver exercise. The Board was informed that WYPF continue to provide monthly data quality update reports to the Pensions Team, with the number of data items that needed to be reviewed and updated reducing from c28,500 in 2021 to c6,300 as of 13th January 2025. The Board was informed that WYPF would be running a bulk address tracing exercise across all of the funds that they administer to update missing addresses and postcodes. The Board was also scheduled to be informed about a new data issue, with Capita Payroll deleting historic payroll data prior to 2017.

Knowledge and understanding

The Board was scheduled to receive a report setting out the mandatory and primary training opportunities available to members of the Pension Board and Pension Fund Committee. The training available included:

• The Pensions Regulator Trustee toolkit
• Hymans Robertson’s online training portal, “LGPS Online Learning Academy (LOLA)”
• Day sessions on various governance and topical issues provided by CIPFA
• Ad-hoc training sessions

Decisions made by the Pension Fund Committee

The Board was scheduled to receive a report summarising decisions made by the Pension Fund Committee, outlining the rationale behind them and the processes followed in reaching those decisions. The report included summaries of the meetings held on 22nd October 2024 and 14th January 2025.