The meeting considered routine updates on the operation of the North East Scotland Pension Fund, including its performance and administration. The Committee noted the effectiveness report, the contents of the quarterly strategy report and the performance of the fund. The committee also gave permission for officers to approve travel to investment management meetings and approved the procurement of legal services.

Strategy Report

The Committee received the regular quarterly strategy report.

The most significant item in the report was the update on the recently completed annual benefit statement mailing. The report noted that:

The Fund recorded 99.92% compliance for all benefit statements in 23/24 (active, deferred and Councillors). This is an increase from the reported figure of 99.78% in 22/23.

The report detailed the errors that led to some members not receiving statements and explained that the fund did not consider it necessary to report these errors to the Pensions Regulator.

The report also noted the successful introduction of the Pension Administration Strategy, which was first considered at the previous meeting of the committee.

The data quality improvement plan was also updated. This is a significant document that the fund is required to produce under the Pension Regulator's General Code of Practice. It lists a number of actions that the fund will be taking over the coming year to improve the quality of its data in preparation for the introduction of the Pensions Dashboard. The plan includes:

• An exercise to verify member addresses
• A review of undecided leavers
• A review of members in arrears
• An exercise to contact members with unclaimed refunds
• A project to improve the quality of historic data held about members.

The report also provided an update on the implementation of the McCloud remedy.

Councillor Cooke noted that three new Modern Apprentices had recently joined the Fund, and that the Fund's two existing apprentices were performing well. He reminded members of the Committee of the need to complete mandatory training.

Overseas travel

The committee considered a request to approve overseas travel to attend meetings of the advisory boards of several asset management companies. The committee approved travel to the following meetings:

• HarbourVest - London
• IFM - Milan
• Blackrock - New York
• Unigestion - Madrid
• RCP - Chicago
• HarbourVest - Boston

It also delegated authority to the Chief Officer – Finance, in consultation with the Convener, to approve travel to meetings of the following organisations once the dates and locations have been confirmed.

• Partners Group - Zug
• Capital Dynamics - London.

Asset and Investment Manager Performance Report

The committee considered the regular report on the investment performance of the Fund, which is considered to be commercially sensitive and is therefore not available to the public. During the discussion, members requested further information on the location of the fund's biomass assets.

Procurement of Legal Services

The committee considered a report that sought permission to appoint a new legal services provider using the national LGPS framework. The committee agreed to award the contract to an unnamed provider.

Annual Effectiveness Report

The Committee noted the annual report on its effectiveness. The most significant item in the report was the observation by Audit Scotland that:

“members’ commitment to pensions training needs to be improved to support good scrutiny”

and its recommendation that:

“The programme of mandatory training should be refreshed and sanctions agreed and implemented where agreed training is not undertaken within reasonable timescales”

The report provided an update on the completion rates by members of the Committee for the various mandatory training modules. During discussion, members asked for a training session on carbon statements and metrics, and asked that the session be interactive.

The report noted that Councillor van Sweeden had joined the committee at the beginning of the reporting period, and that Councillors Allard, Cross, McLellan and McRae had left after the size of the committee was reduced.

Announcements

Councillor Cooke welcomed Mr Stuart Thompson to his first meeting as a member of the Pension Board. He informed the committee that Senior Pensions Officer Kirsty Ewing was now on maternity leave and that Kyrsten Webster would be covering her duties.

Councillor Cooke congratulated staff on the Fund's shortlisting for a number of awards. It was noted that the fund had been shortlisted in the following categories in the upcoming Pension Age awards:

• DB Pension Scheme of the Year
• Pension Administration Award
• Best Investment Strategy Award
• Pension Scheme Innovation Award.

The committee noted that the fund had also been shortlisted for, but had not won, the Fund of the Year (Large) and Outstanding Individual Contribution - LGPS awards and that Ellen Edwards had been shortlisted in the Rising Star category of the Local Government Pension Scheme Awards.