Transcript

Please note the recording of tonight's meeting may also be used for quality and training purposes. While we hope everything runs smoothly, please be patient if we hit any technical difficulties. In the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and it cannot be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will be posted on the Council's Democracy X account, which is at LBL Democracy. Please, could I ask members to turn on their cameras and microphones just before they are about to speak? I will introduce members of the board and co-op tees in alphabetical order by surname. I should state at this point that we have received apologies from Councillor Liam Daley and Alucilla Aiku. So, in alphabetical order by surname, I'm Linda Bray, anyone else? Matthew? I'm Councillor Matthew Bryant, Councillor Paul Stratom Hill, West Ham and Fulton Moore and I have no pecuniary interest to declare. Thank you. Anne Biddle? Anne Biddle? Anne Biddle. Anne Biddle. Anne Biddle. Anne Biddle, I'm the Pechers representative and I have nothing to declare. Thank you. Anne Presley Rebello? Anne Presley Rebello, Unison, representing the Unions. I have nothing to declare. Great, thank you very much. So, I have no pecuniary interests and I don't think you do either. So, the second item on the agenda is the minutes of the last meeting. No amendments have been received by democratic services. So, are the minutes agreed? Great. Thank you. Item three, work programme. I'm going to ask Linda D'Souza or Michael Nicolau to give a brief summary and I would be obliged if all officers introduce themselves before they speak. Thank you. Good evening, Councillor Bray. I'm Linda D'Souza. I'm the AD for payroll and pension. So, this is the work programme for reports relevant for 2425. So, this is the last date for 2425. So, in the next scheduled meeting, you'll see a new work programme for the dates over 2526 year. Of course, this doesn't include matters that may crop up from time to time. So, the report plan is merely a plan of what we envisage will be taken to this board. But obviously, as I said, things might come up time to time. So, it may be subject to change. And that's about it for this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? No. No. No. No. What's on the plan on the agenda? Thank you. On to item four, business plan tracker. Again, I'm going to ask Linda D'Souza or Michael Nicolau to give a brief summary. Please. thank you chair again this is the business tracker for 24 25 and so the the next board meeting that that we meet on there'll be a business plan tracker for 25 26 so i'll just open the floor for any questions any questions go to the bright we did discuss it in the last meeting was whether um in terms of the procurement of the new contract for actuarial services and also investment management um i think we were in the kind of standstill period at the last meeting is that now finished and do we know who can you confirm who those contracts have been awarded to and when the start dates on uh oh go on go on so i shouldn't be in here if you are going to say anything about it yeah true true so i i i don't know if um uh rob or michael because i don't know but obviously obviously not naming names in terms of successful tenders yeah yes hello um i'm michael nicolau i'm the interim treasury and pension fund manager um do you want to turn your screen on oh my apologies i'm sorry hi there i'll start again hi there my name is michael nicolau uh i'm the interim head of treasury and pensions um yes in in terms of those two retenders uh the actuarial retender um has now completed however the name hasn't been released by uh democratic services so it is still confidential uh regarding the investment tender that will um be done a little bit later on uh this year thank you yeah matthew because under the tracker the actual retender was due to be completed by december 24th so has that been completed sorry i'm sorry rob i was going to say um as far as i'm aware only the um the extra sorry the actual retender has been finalized has been completed um and the other retender will go ahead later in the year um i don't know the background to that rob is there anything that you could add to that or anybody else uh so so oh hi sorry i'm rob brown in acting ad for treasury pensions uh all i will say is that um we're still um we're still involved in uh finalizing that exercise with procurement uh before we can release any results of that yeah which we're not in a position to give any further update so the tender has actually been conducted completed the exercise but it's still a decision that's got to be made about any success about the recommended possible good um any other questions okay um yeah i don't think i had any questions on that okay so um um um note um the results of that report and then um on to the no deal well i know what the next item is it's item five but i can't i've lost mentions administration performance report yeah i know i'm sorry about helping but i've lost the um report itself yes item five performance report um i'd like to ask linda d'Souza to give a brief introduction thank you chair so this is the performance report that's covering the period from january to march 20 25 so there's only one appendix in in this report appendix one um i'll just touch on a few areas as i normally do before i open for questions um 2.2 outlines the cases that have been dealt with in this quarter and then the main performance indicators are shown as i've said in appendix one as usual um just to add from the next report onwards we'll be splitting the actual performance indicators even further to separate quotations provided from the actual calculations that are carried out um to bring it in line in a set in essence with the annual report guidance that was issued uh some time ago um that was jointly produced by mhclg the scheme advisory board and sit for so they'll have a new look and feel when when it comes to the next um board meeting um looking at 2.5 um just something to note for myself and for yourselves it's it's pleasing to see that the number of active members in the in terms of use of the online portal is increasing steadily and we're closing are on the 50 percent mark um hopefully the number of registered users will significantly increase now that we've introduced the engage self-service um and i've touched on that in 2.5 of the report and that's an enhanced platform it will it's a different look and feel to the platform more user-friendly there there are videos on how to you know look at your benefits and things like that there's a an income tracker as well um recording um sort of estimating what your likely income will need to be depending on the lifestyle you choose so it's a it's a little bit more user friendly so um obviously this time in in a few months we'll be issuing the benefit statements and then we issue reminders especially to deferred members and active members um of the online portal so hopefully we'll be um having many more members uh registered um to view their benefits etc and then in 2.3 um as part of the ongoing mcleod remedy work i've um we've issued notification to all deferred members this time last last time it was active but this time it's deferred um to determine if they fall within the boundaries of the remedy and if they've got other public service pension arrangements and then as usual i've provided an update of where we are with the mcleod remedy and so as at the end of the quarter we processed something like 3.9 um thousand um and then mentioned in 2.24 um i've mentioned that due to the success of the project um there's now a very small number of cases to review and so we've moved this in uh from project mode to business as usual mode so that's that's very pleasing for me um and i've provided another brief update on the pensions dashboard situation and noting that the lamb of pensions we continue to be on track for connection later this autumn we've got everything in place we've we've done um the testing of the isp the the the um service provider that provides the interface so we're ready to go actually which is another good news story and then i've provided a short note on the lga lgps conference that took place this this january actually and i've captured some um key topics that were discussed at the meeting and hopefully um with a view of wetting your appetite to attend the conference in 2026 for those of you who didn't attend um which can can be attended virtually as well so if you're not able to to be there in person you can attend virtually so i'll stop there and i will open for any questions um i think other solar went to that um conference did you go and yeah unfortunately um owing to the change of date she she wasn't able to come tonight anyway any questions absolutely all right the only one i have is about about the dashboard i mean how much extra work is that going to be for your team actually yes sorry go on sorry and and who's the presumably intended audience or users of it are members of the scheme or is it is it for general public as well well actually the dashboard is for for you me and everybody else the general public and so what the dashboard does is you go into um any type of um dashboard environment and you type your your your name your your details and um it should pop up in terms of what you've got invested where so if you've got um uh benefits in lambeth it should show those benefits if you've got benefits i don't know in jack so or wherever it should show all of the the build up of your benefits in all of those pension arrangements so you've got it all in one place so that's what it's there to do um and members also they can say well actually i've got membership in lambeth for instance but um if it doesn't quite identify the individual say for instance a person may have changed their name or whatever so it's not a hundred percent match it will send a query to let's say lambeth to staff in lambeth to um identify whether it um that person is indeed who they say they are and if there is a match so there will be um um some type of uh query etc and we don't know actually the the the number of of increased inquiries that we will get so it's just sort of going to be suck it and see real and see and see what happens but hopefully um what we're doing at the moment is to make sure that everything in our system is robust and we've got all the data that we need up to date we're utilizing um third parties to um make sure that we've got up-to-date addresses and and so on and so forth so that by the time we do switch on our data is as clean as it can be and there will be less of a likelihood of being a partial match so it's just wait and see really any more questions yes see any context to some of the numbers that linda has put forward sorry could you speak up a bit i'm uh usually not my problem i don't i realize you don't get the context to seeing other pension funds figures for the stats i've been just showing you and lambeth is probably the top 10 in the lgps for the things so pensions pensions dashboard i mean that level of ready right now is remarkable the mcleod case there are some pension funds out there that there's no way they're going to meet the deadlines for that and you're down to business as usual already so i would have put lambeth in probably the top 10 pension funds in the lgps for these stats oh well done team it's a remarkable outcome yeah thank you um but i ask uh regarding um um the opt-out rate which um i guess um it's um 80 percent in the scheme um which i i guess is is probably pretty good um on average but um um what um does lambeth do to try and persuade uh members who aren't in the scheme to uh join it um i mean i realize that some people may think that the additional money they would have to pay in is you know they can't support it but um um um what what do we do to encourage people i think in terms of ratio and in in terms of the permanent um full-time or um all year round members of staff the percentage rate is is is very high i've included in that number a number of casuals that bring the percentage down because casual workers can opt in to the lgps but they're not they they're not brought in automatically unless they fall in with the within the automatic enrollment um um criteria so um a lot of casual workers maybe because they the casual work of their of nature of their work may feel that they don't wish to be brought into the scheme um we have done an exercise because the majority of casual workers um are leisure services staff that that came in when they tube it in um brought when we brought the leisure uh services back in house and we have on a number of occasions advised them that they can join the scheme we've provided opt-in forms we even had sort of like a seminar day um a few times to allude to the fact that they can opt in and if they feel that it's too much they can join the 50 50 scheme as well um when somebody wishes to opt out even we um advise them that you know uh instead of opting out why don't you try the 50 50 scheme where you're paying half contributions etc so we do what we can to enable people to to join the scheme and or to remain in the scheme possibly you know we can we can do more etc i suppose when all of these projects are out the way mcleod and and um and um dashboards etc we can kind of see where we are in in in the sea of that but i i think we possibly are one of the most more robust um authorities that do what they can to bring them um staff into the scheme and raise the profile of pensions um more recently we've um introduced and utilized viva engage that's that's the uh yama as was so every month um somebody in the pensions team provides a topic in yama that that goes out to all um the employees so not just scheme members just um alluding to and talking about how valuable the scheme is certain things for instance different topics like um death grant lump sums and all of those sorts of things so everybody not just scheme members can can see the value of the scheme so we try sort and test different things as we go on great wonderful um okay um yeah i haven't got any further questions so um are the recommendations um agreed um thank you on to item six um yes item six the uh risk register update i'm going to ask linda to susa and michael nicolau to give a brief introduction please thank you chair so this is a risk register that as you know is presented at each board meeting and as you're aware we review the risks prior to each meeting to note any changes and on this occasion there has been a change um as detailed in 2.5 of the report and that's in respect of pa 22 the risk rating has increased um it's since we received a qualified audit opinion in 20 23 24 there may be an increased likelihood that we received a qualified audit opinion in 25 26 um uh however as it's stated in the report we've put things in place to mitigate this from happening um i'm not sure if you michael or rob want to add anything further before we open for questions on that one no i don't know thank you okay i'll jump in i don't know members would have any questions in general about the accounts being qualified um but but like linda says the very fact that they were means that the auditors will be looking in detail next year um make sure that we've addressed the points that they've flagged in the last set of accounts so um obviously to address that we've brought in some additional resources into the team um to try and uh unwind those issues which which came up last year's audit um but yeah that that risk rating is just to reflect that that slightly higher risk that we're now under because of what happened last year thank you any questions um we're just picking up that point there is i mean are you confident that you've been able to resolve what the issues that occurred in the 23 24 accounts so they shouldn't recur this year fairly confident yes i think we were we were caught in a difficult place with the 23 24 audit because we had uh the orders wanted to do a full audit in a matter of weeks um and by the time they flagged the issues which have led to the the qualified opinion added two three weeks max to try and unwind issues they flagged um and to come up with the answers i think it's also worth noting that we've not done anything different in those accounts the prior years yeah as the facts just say perhaps change some of their audit policies we're looking differently we've kind of approached it as well the accounts may have been qualified but if anything it's it's flagged areas where we need to improve our record keeping um it's flagged areas that we need to focus on in terms of our accounting practices going forward um and we've obviously got more time to do that in terms of finalizing the 24 5 accounts which have to be published by the end of june and then the audit which will start at the end of that so hopefully resources we've got in the team now um and the extra time be able to get to the bottom of those issues which are flagged because i think that that lands a month later this year is that right that's right yeah we'll tell you it's maybe it's actually 30 of the june so you've got political time too exactly yeah can i ask a question about cyber security which i'm sure you've got under control there's been some really big failures just recently and i wondered if you had thoughts about whether you need to review your cyber security which is pa can't really eight links to system failures which is pa i can't really black and white so they're both slight high on my um document here so i wondered if perhaps now might be the time to think about whether you're confident that what you've got is the best that you can have well we um sorry i'll i'll i'll take that one chair um we've recently um retendered our pension software system um to um hayward limited um who are now in situ um and with how with with that with the evaluation process obviously there were a number of questions related to cyber security which um we felt satisfied um met those requirements um with with with hayward and i i dare say other other um providers they do provide assurance they run tests every quarter and then every year um in terms of security cyber security tests etc so that we could have that recorded that everything is in place and in order but i i mean that we we have to always be vigilant um making sure that um we do things within the boundaries of of the system capabilities and not giving out information confidential information um where a portal etc it isn't suitable um our liaison for instance with with um actuaries and things like that it's it's via confidential portals etc so so yes i i dare say um within the pensions review that's that's going to be underway this year that will be one of the um areas that will be tested thank you um i have a question yes sorry please assuming just building on that assuming that there is a data breach how quickly can we get up and running what is the downtime because normally on the software side they would say a b c d e f g our system is robust but beyond that assuming that there is a hack how long will it take us to be up and running and at what point do we go back that's that kind of data we need to understand the scenario okay well obviously that there is a um uh a business continuity plan um etc and and the data plan that has all of those sorts of scenarios in place fortunately with uh providers uh such as hayward limited they do have an an off-site um um facility so that things can close down and the data will could be protected in another environment it's not they don't just have one environment etc so um we've got a process in place for instance if there was a data breach even a wider data breach and in terms of non-pensions because obviously we work in lambeth council so you're talking about oracle and other systems in use with within lambeth aren't we so there there is a business continuity plan for all of those systems that are in place and from time to time they get tested um for for robustness but we do have a plan whereby um and the council along with the council have a plan whereby we have established the the measures that will uh be in place if such a data breach occur occurs okay thank you um i note that one of the risks is um that the uh board and committee um aren't um sufficiently trained and so on but um i note that that is coming up um on a another agenda item so um all the recommendations agreed in this yes thank you okay then on to um item seven um which is draft business plan right um michael um nicolau um would you please give a brief introduction to this item to this item yes chair um very briefly it it does cover both um would you put your um your uh sights on oh my apologies yes my apologies let me just turn my camera on um there we go thank you hi there sorry about that um yes of course um it does cover both um the administration and the finance area um i'll focus on the finance area let linda do the uh administration area um the business plan has been updated for 25 26 um just a few things to note uh with respect to the finance area um there will be an appointment and induction of the pensioner rep to the board later in the year um we have added in the return of the investment advisory service that's the investment management consultancy service that we mentioned earlier um and of course importantly there will be the actual ultra annual valuation uh this year on which there will be a training session for board and committee members and a short presentation behind us later on on the timeline in relation to this that will last for uh the next year next 12 months linda can i pass over to you through the administration element yes of course um just just looking at the administration element i'm i'm kind of um focusing possibly on page 54 um just uh highlighting key areas that we're looking at in the administration team and pages 53 if i start from pages 53 actually um a lot of the activities uh deadline activities are marked ongoing but where we're actively um working towards completion of most of them the i i guess i um maybe touch on point number eight since i've sort of talked about dashboards etc earlier uh where i've got pensioner payroll enhancements so we're carrying out several enhancements to our pensioner payroll module um to allow for a smoothing right smoother running of the service which uh also takes away the activity of raising several let's say one-time payments that we um make for example pension payment lump sum or transfers out so that will ease the burden on certain staff who who actively produce those one-time payments in in the oracle system um we're really making good uh progress on all of these actually we're currently carrying out um testing in the uh test environment of the pension system uh with a view of rolling most of this out in june and july time so that will be um a success and a win we're also looking to roll out what we call i'm looking at point nine here on page 53 what we what we call i connect it's it's it's like an interface really for employers to to use to inform the fund of scheme member data and contributions deducted from each um scheme member each month etc so at the moment we receive spreadsheets from most of our employers and so we need to carry out certain validations ourselves manually but within i connect it has an inbuilt validation system that could be carried out in real time so the employers could do that themselves so that they can um process that process it it will highlight any um validation issues that need to be looked at they will make the corrections before forwarding the file to the fund so we'll have a lot less validation to do so it's it's things like that that we're doing and and then in terms of the communication side of things page 54 it's got the it's got the usual um benefit statements obviously we have to issue benefit statements by a certain time each year um to defer to members and to um active members we've got the annual allowance statements and and so on and so forth i'll stop there anyway thank you so on um gots any questions no okay um in that case um are the recommendations agreed thank you then on to item eight which is the draft training policy and plan 2025 26 um and i'm going to ask um michael nicolau um again to give a brief introduction please thank you chair thank you chair um yeah the draft training plan has been updated for 25 26 i think the key uh i guess there are there are two key elements um that i would highlight one is um it's been updated with regards to some recommended training events um as as well as some wider training options available over the year for members this includes events covering pooling the pension board and investments um the training log has also been attached um i think uh the chair mentioned this earlier and the thing you might take from the training board is that some members are better at undertaking training than others um i'll i'll leave it there and open it up for questions any questions please um i assume that um we're in we will all be advised in due course when the um uh the training sessions um will be um offered for uh viewing shall we say um and also i see there is a conference coming up next month um which is in london if anyone uh that's a local pensions board event the other two are out of london but um but um if members can make that all the better um um okay in that case um are the recommendations agreed agreed agreed good thank you um on to nine um investment performance report that would be me that would be me chair yes um yes can i ask michael again thank you very much um yeah um investment performance report um you'll see from the report um just to highlight a few things from the report you'll see that uh the lc iv uh we've made some new investments um one is the lc iv uh investment to the lc iv all maturities buy and maintain credit fund uh in line with the authorization by the committee uh we've also committed to two new funds with adam street um this is the european and global fund um a call has already been made um on the global fund so we're we're um the fund is already contributing to that um the investment performance over quarter four the fund outperformed in quarter four um marginally 1.8 against 1.7 percent um all but one of the lcv funds um underperformed unfortunately the outstanding fund was the rbc global equity fund outperformed by uh it's benchmarked by 140 basis points um no fund um stood out as doing particularly relatively badly over the quarter and overall um the fund did sadly underperform in all reporting periods other than quarter four 2024 largely largely driven by lc iv uh jp morgan emerging markets fund in particular and the investgo property fund um in terms of asset allocation um as that 31st december 2024 um the fund was most notably overweight global equity in mac funds it was most notably underweight to private equity and property uh the recent investments in adam street's european and global funds will help to rebalance this towards the target benchmark for private equity and in fact rebalance the whole fund the effect however uh will take many years because we initially make commitments and those are called gradually over a number of years i they're invested gradually over a number of years um the uk exposure of the fund just over 22 about 413 million pounds of the fund was exposed to the uk that's a an increase of about 5 percent on the cash value of the fund the previous quarter um the fossil fuel exposure uh the funds fossil fuel exposure is estimated to have remained under 0.5 percent um but please note lc iv was unable to provide updated figures due to their system due to some system problems so basically last quarter's figures for them were used the funding level of the fund um at the last valuation as at 31st march 2022 it was 96 percent the actual estimate funding level as at 31st of december 2024 was 125 so um it looks like it's in a very healthy position i'll leave it there chair and uh open to questions um questions anyone councillor bryant yeah obviously we don't get involved in the investment decisions as the pensions committee who do that um so is there any feedback from the last meeting of the pensions committee about have they um made any decisions about changes in investment and are there any of these funds that are on their watch list so i'm particularly thinking about the investor property one because i think that has been a recurring issue about underperformance um the um you probably saw from um uh one of the following items that the um uh uh dates of meetings have been um slightly altered so that the board will now be meeting shortly before the committee so if we um at the recommendation of of zena um um which means that if the board if we want to make any recommendations to the committee we can do so so that um they can consider them at the at their next meeting which i think is a you know much more sensible procedure than um because i think the last committee was i don't know january or something like that which means there's kind of not a very little coordination between the two at the moment but anyway that's but that's sorry i um i would stress as well that yeah support has always had the opportunity to feed back to the committee yeah i know the opportunity to do it before the committee makes decisions um well i will say in terms of the investment strategy um um mitty would have only started to decide and implement the last strategy sort of towards the end of 2023 into 2024 and are still enacting that um so in terms of the strategy going forward that will come only towards the end of this year early next year once the valuation results start coming through we'll start to put that into action the middle of 2026 late 2026 so there's a bit of a but could the committee make recommendations about specific investment either the strategies agreed you might be saying actually those and the strategy is to have 15 in property um if if the funds that you've got with the funds that we're using all the property investments that we've applied money to and underperforming can the committee actually make recommendations to say we should ditch this particular investment and we should look at something else yeah i do i think that's actually already happened uh in with investgo in particular so i think the fund the committee has already decided to divest from investgo um and and that's with these with with investments like that there's a waiting for you to exit yeah although the committee may have made the decision to disinvest we may be waiting a year and a half two years before that opportunity comes up unless there's an opportunity for example to sell on the secondary market to someone who might want to buy it from us yes but we're we're in the process of we're in that queue at the moment as i understand it and in absolutely the committee will at the point of deciding the next strategy will look at if it won't well in the current strategy um and obviously feed into that everything from the valuation as well yeah so we can make some recommendations if you want to um pose any but um while you think about that money um i was just going to say the um the two um um new funds that um um the um funds has committed to um uh adam street um i assume that um uh the authorization given by the committee um is um following advice um given by mercer for i mean yes so um yeah so i i think the last investment strategy um uh and forgive me i've been out of this for a bit but i think the last investment strategy we increased our allocation to private equity which is what the edin street funds are part of yeah they're an existing manager that we're already invested in so we've simply committed to two of their recent funds to make sure that our allocation to private equity goes back up that increased exposure that will take some time as michael says because i've committed now but it can take several years for them to draw those funds why with something like private equity you need to be committing regularly uh either annually every two years you've always got those funds being invested and then you've got funds coming back as it matures you've got that constant cycle that you maintain that exposure yeah so matthew well counselor bryant well i'm in truth because obviously that's news to me about this changing of the timing of the meeting i'm just i'm just mulling that through because obviously because my understanding was that the timing had always been that the pensions committee met first then we met about two or three weeks after that and that because because part of our our main reboot is almost a sort of part of checks and balances of the system to scrutinize what the pension committee are doing so similar we don't get we don't get exciting decisions really we're we're kind of almost there as a backstop of actually if we think they've done something foolish that we can actually ask that rethink it or we think they're missing something we do that as well so it's slightly different if we're now meeting before and they're meant to be meant to be recommended i'm just thinking that's the case and possibly we might need a slightly different paper coming to us from offices because yeah we're not we're not investment investment experts as it were so to make a suddenly make a recommendation we think you know i've looked at this one why is that only 7.3 percent i think we probably get more or less the same documents as committee and i think they're in the appendices um you've got the information about how funds are doing so on so um yeah i think the timing is an issue um because the the committee the way it's scheduled now the committee will always be a week i think a week maybe two weeks after all right in terms of paper deadlines and everything um for example the papers for next week's committee have already been no opportunity for us to to feed back anything or want us to feed back in the papers that published but that doesn't prevent us of course uh presenting a verbal update or the chair sending questions to the chair of the committee to be read out at the meeting and addressed by members um yes it does change the dynamics slightly between the two um but yeah essentially the committee is still the decision making body um you've just got the chance to to pip in now before they make it does come up in another agenda item actually i think um hang on let's just see if i can get back to the agenda without using everything that's my question to rock would be i don't know if you've got experience with other local government pension schemes how they how the board and committee operate does the board tend to meet before the committee or afterwards in in other places so my experience has been the way we used to do it first then forward but we did a bit of research yeah and it's pretty much 50 50 uh in terms of how the other authorities do it so there's no right way um this is probably not for now i think i think possibly we might need to rethink how we we work linda as it were in terms of that if we've now got this change of focus so because because there is that opportunity to feed something if we're going to do it we need to be thinking what are the areas we could best look at is there a chance that it could be reviewed you know if it's not really working you're good because the role is scrutiny isn't it and it's difficult to scrutinize something that's not happened yeah yeah yeah well i mean again i think this is later in the agenda but um there is going to be a governance review of the fund um not just in terms of uh governance arrangements within the committee but the structure of the team uh on the council side as well uh and as part of that we can get the uh the advisors to look at this proposed setup or certainly how it's structured for the next year um if they think it's the best way forward or not but at least we can get a view from there yeah i it wasn't really working before because um you know we often didn't get the um uh the committee minutes um when we had our board meeting so we weren't able to scrutinize what the committee was doing anyway and i think scene is of the view that we should have a you know a slightly more um not just scrutiny but sort of general um overview with the um responsibility of more up front yeah um that is coming up is it what's the um item is it um 13. oh okay so which we're um yes about to move on to anyway um well okay are there any more questions on um this i mean we can always come back to it if you have any thoughts during the uh rest of the meeting i don't know the only question i had which actually kind of links a bit when we were obviously talking to the um about the risk register early on as well and it was a conversation we were actually having before the meeting started is just what um is there any perception from our investment advisors about the increased risk to the fund because of market volatility we've been seeing since january the 21st and the election of the new president um which obviously it seems to have a global patience and um do we know to what extent i mean i know it's always possible to predict what's in the future um but um how that that must there must potentially have a bearing on the valuation so yeah i may come in as well um all i would say is it's the same old mantra really um there may be some short-term volatility but we're a long-term investor so there will always be peaks and troughs um and this is just to be another trough right out um do you want to add anything to that yeah mercer's view is to look through the current current volatility whether they'll change that view or not i can't say but at the moment it's just to look through the volatility essentially um ignore it we are a long-term investor so um just carry on for now um and and also we did have a quick look at the uh the valuation of the fund um and i think at one point it was down about five percent i don't think there has been anything um anything to worry about at this point um especially with equity markets haven't recovered but the view of mercer's is to look through it we're a long-term investor and just carry on i guess we could always say to the committee that we've noted you know this volatility and um trust that they will be um you know scrutinizing it with um mercer or words to that effect yeah it's difficult because you don't have mercy here at this meeting but yeah definitely ask the the committee to to ask that question now how do we go about doing that um so i can i can just put a little bit in the comment i think in the minutes so um can be action at the meeting like committee yeah because i mean it's next week the committee meeting i believe so um i suggest that maybe we have admitted as an action but um you chaired up with uh councillor bailey uh an email just to say that yes discuss the board i think it actually i think it did mention in the next item how how it should be done actually but anyway um i can certainly do that yeah uh okay any other questions or comments yes i think for uh for a fund of this value uh doing daily calculations for fees management is detriment to the fund it always works out against the interest of the fund because of compounding values has any thoughts been given to that because it says here the value is 1.8 million and it wasn't paid it was deducted on a daily basis whenever the transaction takes place that normally works against the value of the fund if you understand that concern so is there any thought given to that how we might improve this so so most most fund managers will take their fees from the value of your holdings they won't invoice you separately so all that basically means is that um none of our fund managers invoiced us specifically for their their fees they just take it off value of our assets normally they do that for individual investors for fund of this amount of money it's it's pretty standard uh across the lgps uh there's no transparency right difficult to uh transparency in in the sense that through that the managers reporting to us whether it be monthly or quarterly statements they'll give us a breakdown of how they have calculated those fees and there is something called the the cost transparency initiative where there are a series of templates that managers complete um which which breaks down into into great detail the nature of their fees so we do have all of that information um and again i would i would just say that that that's pretty standard practice to deduct fees um from your investment holdings can i add to that um in terms of deduction deducting from your holdings um directly um that's tip that typically happens with what what you what we call poured funds so whether when there are multiple investors investing in a single fund um typically the manager would would take um you know their fees out of the fund itself um and then it would issue calculations to each individual member um how it's determined the fees for them um and i believe for each individual manager those things are are audited so you can have some reassurance on that and we also see uh the calculations and the fees that they've taken on behalf of lambeth we can actually do reproduce the calculations that they do because they are typically a percentage of the fund a small very small percentage of the fund and we know the fund value at any given point in time um lambeth doesn't have any uh what would a term segregated mandates where that wouldn't happen um and effectively the manager would invoice us their fees um um i i think i think it's it's it's not always it's it's a little bit complex um it depends on the type of assets as well um so it's not always the case that poor funds uh will take the their fees out of the fund some time some some funds do actually invoice you but it it depends on the nature of the investments themselves it's a little bit it's a little bit complex so um i i hope i've clarified it i've not made things worse okay any other comments no okay well in that case are the recommendations agreed with the addition thank you okay then on to item 10 general update and um i'm going to ask um michael nicolau again to um give us a brief introduction thank you just um some points to note from the general update um 60 of the fund is now invested via the lciv um the fee savings which we've kind of just touched on um there were 314 000 pounds in quarter four 2024 that's with regards to the lciv this looks like looks likely to mean a slight increase in the fee savings overall in 2025 in the 2025 financial year compared to the previous year in part i i suspect that reflects increased investments in lciv um asset pooling uh proposed by lciv on asset pooling uh which is a a topic of government um has received a favorable opinion by the government um and that's included in the appendix um the triennial actual evaluation 25 2025 will get underway shortly um a timeline is included in the pack should men most wish to refer to refer to this um ahead of the training plan um however i think hymens has attended today and may add some comments on that um the 2023 24 pension fund accounts have been published uh there is a link to this um in the paper pack uh we've touched on the preparation of the 24 25 accounts that's underway and again we've touched on the governance review of the committee and board um this is to be done taken in 2025 um the aim is to ensure best practice and that that that the boards and the committee are sufficiently resourced um i assume a part of that um you know that the order of the meetings will be covered as as well i'll open for questions can the chair any questions um there is a training plan um as a final item on today's agenda pack um and hymens is here to um talk you through that um and there is a training session due either within the committee meeting or before the committee meeting next uh on the 14th and and that will cover a much wider element of the actual evaluation like funding and so on rather than just the timeline um and um um presumably uh the board can um come to that training session which i i assume will be in this room you know just looking it up our chair i mean i know you're looking it up i've had an invitation to it so you could you should have an invitation to it or democratic services yes it is in the um well it's in our council calendar i'm not sure it is yeah that's next wednesday we're talking about yes it's scheduled for five o'clock next wednesday yeah yeah it's in person i think isn't it is it you you can is it hybrid darling uh let me just get the invitation you you can i so i i because it's right before committee meeting i imagine some of the committee members will be here in person um in fact i don't think there's a room although there is yeah yeah there is a room for before yes so um some members may may be there in person but yeah there's a teams thing there so i'll counter join virtually i can join invite teams for help for me thank you there's a link there's a link on the invite yes it's um any other questions no um as she was saying at the beginning of the uh report um uh uh well we have invested um uh 60 percent of the funds with the um elseive can you remind us of um how our um advisors uh uh are able to deliver their input to the whole elseive um committee if you see what i mean when when the elseive is uh considering what um investments to make presumably each uh borough or member of the elseive is able to give some input um into how those investments are made is that correct or not there is a there is oversight of the elseive investments um by the committee and buyer investment advisors um what the advisors typically do before the fund makes those investments is they will review the aims and objectives um and look at um elseive overall and it's it's proposed fund um and decide whether it's suitable for lambeth before lambeth commits so there's oversight before and there's oversight after in terms of the day-to-day investments that's typically done by elseive and that's part of the relationship between uh the pool and its members it'd be very difficult for multiple members to make comments on a day-to-day basis in with regards to the investments yeah so that that's how that's how the overall um arrangement works but um yeah i assume we don't we wouldn't we wouldn't have the same input uh bearing in mind the savings we're making in um uh not having to pay funds managers so much that's yeah that's the benefit uh to us okay well i will sound that just very quickly chair is that part of this consultation that the government did fit for the future consultation about changing the nature of that investment advice so going forward the intention i think is for the the pools to provide investment advice to each of the its member funds so that would fundamentally change the nature of our relationship with our investment advisor would we need them anymore yeah i i see yeah that's all part of that consultation okay time scale around that so the results came out uh fairly recently didn't they didn't know yeah the response has not been published yet oh okay uh but the pools themselves have been told about whether they're meeting the ideals of the government's objectives some of the pools have been told they aren't because my understanding is they want bigger pools is that correct they do and they want them to a big enough pool or i'll and save got approved their business plan got approved so they will survive the question for the london sieve is the consultation requires them to provide extra services to you one of them being strategic asset allocation advice so what percentage to put in the property what percentage put into equities it's going to put further distance between yourself and the who who they're actually sticking the money with so right now you still have quite a bit of control over we want to invest in property we're going to one of the else's property funds what happened after all this is sorted is you'll say i want 15 property and london civ will decide what funds i get that's the slight change that's going to happen on the back of this the other slight change that's going to happen for a committee in the pension fund is you have to have an independent oversight so if elsa were giving you the advice and elsa were again taking your money and investing it for you you have to have someone with the experience and knowledge so to basically say they're doing a good job or not um mercers could fill that role or you might have to have an independent trustee or an advisor come in to fill that role in some way because that that that type of arrangement is not allowed in the private sector in fact it was just very recently that they kiboshed that in the private sector and now they're introducing it to the public sector which there's conflicts of interest there that we also found really complex arrangement of who's talking to him at any given time of course one of the key things that london civ also have to consider is because two pools didn't survive there's 21 pension funds out there looking for a new pool will else have considered taking on new partners we should know the answer to that in the next couple weeks because some of those ones have actively have to ask also that question we could see also get bigger thank you thank you um any more comments or questions no um so um are the recommendations agreed thank you okay so we're now going to move on to the exempt meeting so um that concludes the public part of this meeting um i now move that the present public be excluded from the remainder of the meeting due to the likely disclosure of exempt information in that section having considered the public interest test so is is that confirmed yes good okay then um we now close the public meeting of the pensions uh board thank you and good night um to all our viewers um attendees will need to accept exit the meeting and join the separate exempt meeting interview invitation so thank you and and uh good evening