The Croydon Council Pension Committee met on 10 June 2025 to discuss a range of issues including investment performance, compliance, and governance. The committee agreed to note the contents of several reports, including updates on the London Collective Investment Vehicle (LCIV), key performance indicators, breaches of the law, and the risk register. They also agreed to send a letter to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) regarding breaches of the law and to agree to the Fund's draft Communications Policy Statement.

Key Performance Indicators

The committee reviewed the Croydon Pensions Administration Team's key performance indicators (KPIs) for February to April 2025. The report highlighted that the team generally met targets, with the exception of deferred benefit calculations. The team has been undertaking blitz days to address outstanding leaver cases in preparation for the triennial valuation¹ and to reduce the number of outstanding leavers. The team is also incorporating McCloud remedy² calculations into their processes and cleansing data to ensure compliance with new requirements. The Fund's administration software providers, Heywood, have been assigned as the Integrated Service Provider (ISP) to provide the connection to the Pensions Dashboard, and the team is on track to connect by the deadline of 31 October 2025.

Breaches of the Law

The committee reviewed the current breaches of the law log extract and agreed to send an update letter to The Pensions Regulator (TPR). The log included 16 items, with no new entries since the last review. Five entries concerning the 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 accounts were updated to include details of the letter to be issued by the Fund to TPR, informing them that the Fund has failed to meet the statutory deadlines in respect of publishing annual accounts and annual reports for each of these years.

Risk Register

The committee reviewed the Pension Fund Risk Register, noting that no new risks had been added, but risks 4, 7, 8, 12, 14 and 15 had been updated and risk 10, concerning the heightened cyber security risk associated with the Russia / Ukraine conflict, had been removed. The register included 15 risks, with 8 being significant risks for the Fund.

Communications Policy Statement

The committee considered and agreed to the Fund's draft Communications Policy Statement. The amendments were limited to changing a few relevant dates and minor drafting and formatting changes. The Pension Board requested that in the Section Communication with Admitted and Scheduled Employers Participating in the Fund the reference to it being mandatory for liaison officers to attend employer forms be changed to it being strongly encouraged. Additionally, at the request of the Board the arrangements for access to the member portal have been clarified.

Investment Performance

The committee received an update on the Fund's investments and current funding position for the quarter ended 31 March 2025. The market value of the Fund's investments at 31 March 2025 was £1,959.4m, a decrease of £24.0m during the period. The Fund returned -1.28% over the quarter. The indicative funding position at 31 March 2025 was that the Fund had a funding level of 136% and the future level of return required to be 100% was currently 4.2%. There was currently a 90% likelihood of achieving this return.

LGPS Advisory Board and The Pensions Regulator Updates

The committee was advised of matters currently being considered by the Local Government Pension Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) and The Pensions Regulator which are relevant to the Fund.

Of particular note was the SAB's announcement of a government consultation on changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales, with proposed changes intended to improve fairness in and access to the LGPS. The proposals include:

• addressing survivor pensions and deaths grants
• addressing the Gender Pension Gap in the LGPS
• collecting data on how many members opt out of the scheme and why
• changes to forfeiture, aiming to tackle long-standing issues with forfeiture in the LGPS
• several technical changes to how the McCloud remedy operates
• a number of other miscellaneous changes, including changes to five-year refunds, pre-2014 AVCs and small pot payments.

Pooling

The committee was updated on the government's response to the Fit for the Future consultation, which included proposals for investment pooling. The government confirmed it would move ahead with the core of its proposals, with only minimal amendments. Funds will continue to set their own investment strategies but will be required to delegate the implementation of their investment strategy to their pool, as well as taking their principal investment strategy advice from the pool. All assets, listed and unlisted, must also be transferred to the management of a fund's pool.

Governance Best Practice Compliance Statement

The committee reviewed and agreed the draft Governance Best Practice Compliance Statement. The updated draft Best Practice Compliance Statement, included as Appendix A, sets out where the Pension Fund is fully compliant with the Guidance and, where it is not fully compliant, provides an explanation.

Other Matters

The committee also discussed the appointment of an employer representative and employee representative to the Pension Committee.