Transcript

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Pension Board meeting. My name is John Jones, the Independent Chair of the Board, and I will be chairing this meeting today. The meeting is being webcast live on the Council's website. I will now ask the Board members present to introduce themselves, and please, can you also state any declarations of interest that you may have in the agenda items and the nature of the interest. So, David. Thank you, Chair. My name is David Thompson, and I represent the 13,268 retired and deferred pension members, and I have no conflict of interest, Chair. Thank you. Thanks very much. John? Yeah, John Gray. I represent Active Admitted Statistory Bodies. And I have no conflict of interest, but I do always declare I sit on the london, on the executive of the lap. Thanks, John. Duane? Thanks, Chair. My name is Duane Brown, and I'm a senior officer employee representative, and I have no interest to declare. Thank you, and welcome to your first meeting. And online, we have Annette. Good morning. My name is Annette McKenna. I'm representing Admitted Bodies, employees, and I have nothing to declare. Thank you. And Annette? Good morning, all. My name is Annette Oroge. I'm a senior lawyer in the legal team of the local authority, and I represent the employee, the union. I have no interest, no conflict of interest. Right. Thank you very much, everyone. So, that was item one, apologies for absence. For Hannah, any apologies? No, Chair. I've not received any apologies. Thank you. Item two, declarations of interest. I think we've covered that already. Item three, unrestricted minutes of the previous meeting. It starts on page nine of the agenda today. I'll take these page by page, so if anyone's got any questions or issues, please say so. So, page nine, page ten. Yes, Chair. Yeah, thank you. If you see, matters are rising on item three, because we haven't met before. Right, thanks. Yeah? Thanks, Chair. If I just take the first one, in terms of the accounts. So, the accounts have been completed. They were signed off last Friday. We didn't have any significant issues. However, they were disclaimed, which basically means, given that the previous, a lot of people have got disclaimed accounts. But in terms of the audit itself, there were no significant issues that were raised. Thanks. Okay, David. Right. So, that's page ten, page eleven, page twelve, page thirteen. There's an action there about training. I don't know whether, perhaps we could pick this up later. I think it's on the agenda later, isn't it? Three minutes, please. Can I have a second? Yeah. Second. Yeah. Thank you very much. Before we move on, Councillor, could you just introduce yourself as, and welcome to the meeting. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Mustakamad, and apologies. Thank you very much. So, next item is item six, submissions from fund members. I don't think we have any. No? And then item five, submission responses from the pensions committee. I don't think they've... Thank you. So, item six, reports for consideration. Agenda item 6.1, which is the pensions administration report. So, I think, Paul, is... Um, looking at new starters, if you look at the right-hand side, December 24, um, you can see that, um, cases at the start, and new cases, and four, but cases progressed, and cases outstanding. So, progressed was only about 50% of the total of new, of cases, the volume of cases. 93.15 dealt with. I just tried to align, a line above, which is approximately 50% of the total case. There's the two questions, Chair. Thank you. Thanks very much. Paul? Thank you, Chair. Yes, I think, um, it is good with, um, the, um, well, I think generally, all the other cases, um, the workload, um, you know, to, to, to, to do. Yeah, Paul, all those, the rest, absolutely, they're good. It was this, that first line I was asking about. Prima facie, it looks as though only 50% have been handled in the month, not 93. So, just for reassurance, we would like to know what prima facie, it looks below, that 93%, 0.15 have been, uh, completed, it's only 50%. So, if you could drill down on that. I, I will do, Chair. Uh, I mean, I think, um, just, um, uh, uh, I think, um, do. Okay. Right. Thanks. Thanks. Uh, John, you had a question. Yeah, it's, it's a rather unusual one. And, um, perhaps I should have actually emailed the chair and asked him to, but, um, um, I was, um, watching a documentary a little while ago, always a dangerous thing to say, um, but it was talking about, um, you know, a part of the world where people live exceptionally long, you know, they have a really long levity. Yeah, blue zones. And, um, to my astonishment, it was claimed that Tower Hamlets is a blue zone, a mini blue zone, and there is some sort of research that, which is great news, but it's, for people who are over 110, even. Um, but, again, as, as somebody who's worked in Tower Hamlets on and off for 35 years and live next door, uh, the level of social economic deprivation in Tower Hamlets is so huge, I would have assumed, actually, it'd have a negative effect. Now, obviously, um, has, uh, you know, um, you know, retired members live in exceptionally long periods of time. Um, but it just seems so bizarre, but this may be just, you know, a statistical anomaly, but, I mean, I've just Googled it again, and there seems to be some suggestion of a town which is, is blue zone, which, if true, is brilliant news. Actually, I'm worried about the fund. One of the highest poverty rates, the shortest disability-free life expectancy, and the worst index of multiple deprivation in all 32 London boroughs. I'd like to ask a couple of questions in that context, so, are you happy with that, John? Can we just pick it, can we pick that up then? Yeah. Yeah, no, no, it's fine. It's a, it's a good point, and I, it's something I noticed as well. So, um, we'll pick that up, um, on that report. Um, have you got any other points, John? This, like, so I've got a few questions just to pick up, if I may, uh, on the, um, on table 3.5, I was looking at the target days, which is the starters being 40 days, but anyway, that's, we'll leave that, and then where, and some of the others in that column are zero, aren't there, if you look down the, oh, there's another one, yeah, I can't remember what it was. There's another one day, Interfund Transfers In, which is on page 26, um, down the bottom there, is that, that's one day, is that from when they're requested, or when they're received? Because Interfund Transfers usually take ages to sort out, don't they, between, you don't know if you'll answer it now, but if you could just go away and have a look at that. I will look at that. Yeah, yeah, okay, thanks. And, um, the other point I was going to raise, I know you touched self-service, uh, engagement. Has that started yet, and, and is there any sort of time scale for launching it and promoting it? Uh, yes, Jay, we already have the MSS, the Member Self-Service, but, um, Haywood have decided to remove MSS. Will that happen this quarter, or is it, is it? When's it scheduled to, to begin, or is it yet? We are, um, uh, looking to, um, start the transition to the new product, uh, this, uh, this quarter, uh, but of course, um, the build-out, I think, is, uh, complete, and, um, so I think they've been... Nothing, any other, you had a, David, you wanted to come in, didn't you, on something? Thanks, John. Um, I was going to move then on to page 33 onwards, which is the drill-down into non-scheme members, um, up and out. Um, that's nine, adding those two up on the micro-pint page over page, it's 19,000 out of the question. Why are those two significant categories? That's significant. What is the reason? What can we do about it to keep people in the membership? It's a very significant number that are either not talking to us, or... Sorry, Chair. Oh, just... I think that door wants to come in. Oh, right, because you're, you're speaking to the converted. We, on all of those, advocacy, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, David. And, uh, very good questions, honestly. And I think, you know, as part of our job in terms of engaging with members, this is the reasons why we were pushing this forward. Um, I can attest to the opting out one, because that's auto-enrollment. You get a leaflet, say, X, Y, Z, but most people don't even look at that. So one of the things we are trying to do now is part of the induction to have some kind of an explain... I think that these exit no liability. Are these people who've joined the fund and opted out, is that how they... Or not, or not opted in? Who've not joined, or people who've been joined and opted out, or... Well, no... I'm just trying to understand the mechanics, really. Yeah, they've exited, and there is no sort of, uh, liability in the sense that they... So they've got... ...not necessarily have the refund yet, but there's no liability, because you'll have to have a qualifying period. Oh, God. ...15,000, which is a lot. Right. Good. Thank you for that. Right. David, you're keen to carry on, I can tell. Really insightful, but we've got a series of understandings of how we invest. Get it out there, and we need that advocacy. That's 19,000 to be recaptured. Thanks, Chair. Right. We've given this quite a good debate, actually, so thanks for contributions. Any more questions or comments? I'm not seeing any hands pop up. No? Oh, yes, Dwayne, yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Chair. Totally agree with the terms of education, please. Said right. Okay. Well, on that note, can I ask you to, with the comments we've made, can I ask you to agree the report? So, moving onwards to item 6.2, which is the Scheme Engagement Communications Report, and this is covering feedback from the forum and also proposals to arrange another forum. So, Paul, can we have a... Okay, right. Happy to take any questions, Chair. Yeah, because let me open it up for questions. I know we welcomed these initiatives, didn't we, when we spoke before, so well done for that. Any questions, comments, John? Yeah, no, I'm completely endorsed the approach, and it's really good news. Again, as a representative of admitted statutory bodies, I mean, would it be appropriate for me to be invited to the employers' forum in October, and are my contact details sent to them? So, if they wanted to contact me, who is supposed to be a representative, under our terms of reference, obviously, if appropriate for them, I'm quite happy to engage with them on appropriate matters. And just on the employee side of things, it would be great, I think, for pension board reps, but in particular, the employee, the active employee reps, to be invited, because there is a bit of a trust issue. There's lots of reasons why people don't join the Scheme. One of them, they don't understand, they're not aware of it, or the benefits, most of it is a little bit of, so demystifying, and having, saying, well, this is a Scheme that also has, you know, your fellow workers, for Tower Hamlets, sitting on one of its boards. So, yeah. Well, David, do you want to come in? Yeah. Thanks, Chair. Yeah, really endorse the support and ticular. It's in the minutes that she wishes to see happen. I really think that when I looked at page 51, which was the draft agenda, and we did comment on that, that item two, bullet one, is really where John was talking about trust. Fourteen bullet points are separate headings below the bullet points. Fourteen, only one of which we've been doing here is commenting on how a carefully designed survey induction, or the longitudinal, needs to be explained there. Come into this room with us, with the mechanics. It's got to be about come on board. Longitudinal, but a big annual opportunity as part of the longitudinal. It doesn't there about the importance of education and engagement. So, I think the conclusion is you've got the full support of the board in addressing these issues, and I know we'd like to hear feedback on how it goes. And anything the board can do, and John's offered his services before on this, then please take advantage of that. Okay. Any more points or questions? No? I'm not seeing no hands going up. In that case, can we register? And an important document for us and the committee. So, do you want to highlight any key points for us? I know you've highlighted some in the text, haven't you? Some risks there. Can you just explain why we changed from what we had before? Because there's 30 risks, I think. I've got three red, nine amber, 18 yellow, none of them are green. Sorry, if I can expand, because I've been speaking to a risk manager. So, this is a new system called J-Card, and it uses four different colours. So, we're normally used to three different colours. So, this is based on a grid of five by five. So, they say impact and likelihood. So, if I have to revert back to the original, because it's much simpler, it's easier to understand. But we will take that. But you said you will do that for the next one. But for this one, I can explain. So, yellow is a material impact. Green is manageable. So, we can... And then red is severe. So, and then you've got the likelihood. So, you know, how likely could it be? So, I think it's likely, possible, unlikely or rare, depending on what that grid looks like. But on our occasion, at the moment, the severe ones, the ones that we need to concentrate on. ...table, just saying, you know, red, amber, yellow, green, the categories. Then we can, over time, we can then see what the changes are. Because certainly in the past, there were a lot more reds, weren't there, David? My memory is there were a lot more medicine three, which just helps, I think, to understand the process. Right. On that note, I'll stop. And I had one other question. It says risk approach, in the risk register, it says risk approach, treat. What does treat mean? It means you mitigate it by taking action. Okay. There are other options which says avoid or transfer the risk to other... Oh, okay. Right, I'll stop there and open this up. David, you're keen to ask a question. Compliment yours, Chair, and anybody else. But, I mean, this, and then a couple of other points outside the reds. The first red, it really is, and the word treat, repeated, needs how it's going to be treated. You need something among that list will be different for each one. However, first red, in terms of data cleansing, it's too elastic. We clearly see when something's about to start late February, and then will be carried out over seven months. So, for me, it was, I've got a flag for myself, September, seven months from February. So, it needs filling responsibilities, communication strategy, some outcomes. So, a second strand in this is what outcomes will there be, and on that one, it could be increased membership, for example. Third red is about better definition of the inputs. It needs to be much more precise, Chair, with inputs, outputs, timescales. Those things give you confidence. Moving from the reds, I firmly believe, after listening a little bit to what we're going to hear later on in governance, that there's 1.8 million in that report. The first red is data errors, secondary contributions of financial risks. And there's 1.8 million in that report, and there's 1.8 million in that report, and there's 1.8 million in that report. And there's 1.8 million in that report, and there's 1.8 million in that report, and there's 1.8 million in that report. The next point I was going to make is lower order, Paul, but if you've got 10-0, the chair opens, 10-0s because of uncertainty about performance, 10-0s on SIPFA deadlines should be in this. I think finally, I'd be glad to know, I really think the strand that we've just been discussing should be in here somewhere, which is to support membership. It's a risk if we hemorrhage membership without challenge in all of the three ways that we heard. That's good. I think Abdul wants to come in. Yeah, Abdul. Thanks, Chair. David, your points are well made, and we will take that into account. Thank you. Thank you. John, you had a hand up. Yeah, just a short comment in relation to this dispute with the employer about underpayments, and also what we're going to discuss later on. Yeah, well, it's on the agenda later here, in the confidential part. In the confidential part, just while we are in an open meeting, I think my understanding is employers are taking advantage of the current benign states of the local government pension scheme, and are 160% surplus, and are pushing local authorities to make quick deals which benefit them in the expectation that there is a risk that our funding may well deteriorate somewhat, or will do, as inflation resumes a more normal norm. So, just to say, I think for the interest of the funds, stand fast, and if you're confident that you're doing the right thing, push back. ...on the detail, if that would help to take it forward. Yeah. All right, with the comments on the board, can we agree this report then, please? Can you signal agreement? Yeah, thank you. Right, that takes us on to item now. Now, 6.4, is this... It's on the open part of the agenda, but it's on the supplementary. I've got not for public report already. And then item A, training events. Are there any training events, Paul, that you... I know we've got an... ...well, so I think we will be... Yeah, I can't hear you. We will be doing some training, arranging some training at the next meeting. Far more than committees. They weren't necessarily happy with that, but they saw there were obvious reasons. But they were surprised at some questions... I can... It's only asking, because I can see you up there on the screen, but... Yeah, I was busy typing to actually... No, I actually didn't. It was at a bad time, and I... Okay. Yeah, my mistake, I'm sorry. I think I've tried to reach out to kind of get access again, because it was only up to a certain point, so I could complete it. I don't know if that's still possible. Yeah, is it? I can only apologise. No, no, no, it's okay. I'm just trying to... I'm just trying to catch up. So if three of... John, you could have had problems getting in, I think, did you? Yeah, I have problems. I'm sure I did the assessment, but the actual course... I keep being kicked out, and I tried again this morning, and then I've got an error message again, so I've emailed Hyman's as well. But I should have picked this up sooner. Apologies. Dwayne's new anyway, so you haven't done it, because you've only just started, sorry? Aneka. Aneka, you did yours, didn't you, Aneka? Yeah? I did. I did. Yeah. And that leaves... And Councillor Ahmed as well, we need to pick these up. So, Paul, can I ask that you or the team just contacts the individuals in the board who haven't got round to it yet and make sure they can access it? Because from what John's saying, he couldn't get in. Thank you, Chair. Just to clarify, there are two separate matters here. So, the first one is the National Knowledge Assessment, the NKA, and then the other one is the Learning Portal, the LOLA, local authority, you know, portal. And on that, you learn at your own pace, and there are different modules, like Module 1 to Module 8, that, you know... Can I ask? I'm pretty sure of that. You think you've done it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's what I'm asking, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, just here, but... Paul and Abdul's team. So, can I ask you to pick that up? Because I do... I mean, the other point here is this needs signalling at the committee as well, doesn't it? It needs picking up there, so... Any more? Can we proceed on that basis, then? And thank you. Can we just agree that report, then? Comment? Yeah, thanks. That takes us to the work programme. Any questions or comments from the board on this? Thank you, Chair. Okay, I think message... This needs updating, doesn't it? So, that's the... Yeah. Yes, Chair, because this is the last meeting for the 24-25 to the next 12 months. So, this is actually forward-looking, always forward-looking, and then because this is the last, you know, if you like, period that this particular one covers. So, the next programme will be... They need to be picked up in here. Right. Thank you. That takes us to, I think, the end... Can you get someone to second that as well? Can you second that, please? Can we exclude the present public? Thank you, John. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.