The Bexley Council Pensions Committee is scheduled to meet on 9 December 2025 to discuss investment performance, administration of the Bexley Pension Fund, and strategic asset allocation. The committee will also consider the admission of Buckinghamshire County Council Pension Fund to the London CIV.

Buckinghamshire Pension Fund Admission

The committee will consider a report on the London CIV's business case to admit Buckinghamshire County Council Pension Fund (BPF) into the pool. The report notes that the government's Pensions Investment Review, 'LGPS: Fit for the Future', will require all Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds to transfer their assets to their chosen asset pools by 31 March 2026. For Bexley, this will be the London CIV.

The report states that Buckinghamshire Pension Fund formally approached the London CIV to join as its preferred pool. As of March 2024, the total value of the BPF investments was £4.1bn, consisting of 8,601 members. The BPF is currently a client and shareholder of the Brunel pool.

The report notes several potential benefits of the admission, including:

• Scale: Adding BPF's assets would create an estimated 10% growth in overall assets pooled by London CIV.
• Shareholder capital: The BPF would need to make a share capital investment equal to the value held by each existing Partner Fund, equating to a £331k investment.
• Local Investment: BPF's inclusion would bring geographic and demographic diversity, helping balance London Funds' urban-centric exposures.

The report also notes some potential risks, including:

• A potential future risk is a view that if the London CIV has not grown over the next 'x' number of years, interested parties could use this as a way of a potential 'take over' thereby reducing the control London LGPS Funds currently have.
• Adding a non-London fund like the BPF could potentially be seen as prioritising broader southeast interests over pure London ones.
• Adding a large Shire County fund like Buckinghamshire, with scale and investment legacy complexity beyond that of the typical London fund, could risk stretching an organisation that is already navigating resource constraints, competing priorities, and significant transition workloads.

The report recommends that the committee approve the admission of Buckinghamshire Pension Fund to the London CIV as a shareholder, and delegate further operational decision making to the Director of Finance and Corporate Services.

Investment Performance

The committee will receive a report providing a summary of the investment performance of the Bexley Pension Fund and its investment managers for the quarter ending 30 September 2025.

The report notes that the quarter showed an overall increase in valuation for the fund, due to large gains in the global financial markets. Further details on current market conditions can be found in Gallagher's market update in Item 8.2 Appendix 1.

The report includes a table summarising the fund's performance over various periods:

The report also notes that the value of the Fund's investments as at 30 September 2025 was £1.07bn, an increase of £25m, representing a +2.39% change.

Strategic Asset Allocation Proposals

The committee will consider a report providing proposals that meet the committee's objectives and align with their investment beliefs.

The report notes that the fund is in a strong funding position, with initial valuation results giving a funding level of 119% and an updated liability discount rate of CPI+2.6%. The report also notes that the fund is above the agreed risk budget due to overweight allocation to global equities.

The report summarises key proposals to meet objectives:

• To maintain liquidity and efficient cashflow management, it is recommended to maintain a strategic allocation to the London CIV Absolute Return Fund, a diversified growth fund¹ (DGF). It would be funded by reducing the SAA weights to Infrastructure and Inflation Plus property (illiquid assets) and Global Bonds.
• To meet the committee's desire for positive impact from investments and potential to meet local investment ambitions, it is recommended to have an allocation to Social Affordable Housing as this class will also deliver inflation-linked cashflows for the fund. This allocation would be funded by the core property portion of the portfolio.

Quarterly Administration Report

The committee will receive an update on the administration of the Bexley Pension Fund. The report provides an update on legislative and regulatory matters affecting administration, and on the performance of the fund's administrators, Local Pensions Partnership Administration (LPPA).

The report provides updates on the McCloud remedy² and Pensions Dashboards³.

The report notes that the 31 October 2025 Pension Dashboard connection deadline was not achieved, but that Civica continue to progress through the next stages with a new target for connection of mid-December.

The report also provides an update on LPPA's Efficiency and Service Improvement Programme, and on data quality.

The report includes a summary of performance statistics, including:

• The Customer Contact Centre recorded an average wait time of 3 minutes 25 seconds across the quarter, which was under the target of 4 minutes.
• LPPA's overall operational casework performance was 98.3% against Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for the quarter.

Other Items

The committee will also discuss:

• Declarations of interests and dispensations, providing general guidance for members on declaring interests at the meeting.
• Items of late business, providing an opportunity for members to consider items not on the original agenda, if the Chairman is satisfied that they should be considered as a matter of urgency.
• Exclusion of the press and public from the meeting during consideration of the exempt information relating to the Strategic Asset Allocation Proposals and the Quarterly Financial and Fund Management Update.