Agenda, decisions and minutes

Cllr Rodney Rose attended for Cllr Richard Langridge and Peter Fryer attended in place of Philip Wilde as Beneficiaries Observer.

Of the members of the Local Pension Board, Graham Burrow (Independent Chairman) and Duncan Hall gave their apologies.

Councillors Lilly, Rose and Sibley each declared personal interests as members of the Pension Fund Scheme under the provisions of Section 18 of the Local Government Act 1989.

There were no petitions submitted or requests to make a public address.

The report (PF4) responds to the requirement from the Government to submit an outline proposal by 19 February 2016 on future collaboration arrangements with other pension funds. At the last meeting of this Committee on 4 December 2015, a decision was made to formally explore the development of a joint proposal with the 10 south west Funds (the Project Brunel group).The report updates the Committee and members of the Local Pension Board on the discussions which have taken place on future collaborative arrangements since then. 

 In addition to the covering report, the Committee has before them, at Annex 1, the proposal to be submitted to the Government. It is intended that this will be a joint proposal to be submitted by all ten funds within Project Brunel, and is being presented to the relevant Committees over the course of the next week. Annex 2 and 3 to this report are the initial feasibility study and the initial business case produced on behalf of the Project by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC). These documents include detailed information on fee levels etc of the individual funds, as well as potential future fee savings. Whilst the covering report itself does not contain exempt information and is available to the public, Annexes 1 - 3 are confidential in that they contain exempt information relating to potential future commercial arrangements. Members of the Pension Fund Committee and the Local Pension Board are advised that these Annexes will follow as soon as they are available, firstly by way of email and then by hard copy.

The public should therefore be excluded during consideration of Annex 1 because its discussion in public would be likely to lead to the disclosure to members of the public present of information in the following prescribed category:

3.         Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) and since it is considered that, in all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, in that disclosure could distort the proper process of each of the 10 Committee’s negotiating the final proposal.  It is intended that once all Committees have agreed the final proposal for submission to Government, the final proposal will become a public document.

With regard to Annexes 2 and 3, the public should therefore be excluded during their consideration because their discussion in public would be likely to lead to the disclosure to the members of the public present of information in the following category prescribed by Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended):

3.         Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) and since it is considered that, in all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, in that disclosure would prejudice the commercial position of the individual  ...  view the full agenda text for item 4/16

Prior to consideration of the report the Chairman welcomed members of the Local Pension Board (LPB) to the meeting. The LPB had been invited to take part in the discussion on this item.

Members of the Committee and the Local Pension Board considered a report (PF4) which responded to the requirement from the Government to submit an outline proposal by 19 February 2016 on future collaboration arrangements with other pension funds. A decision had been made at the last meeting of this Committee on 4 December 2015 to formally explore the development of a joint proposal with 10 south west Funds (the Project Brunel group).The report updated the Committee and members of the LPB on the discussions which had taken place on future collaborative arrangements since then. 

 In addition to the covering report, the Committee had before them, at Annex 1, the proposal to be submitted to the Government. It was intended that this would be a joint proposal to be submitted by all ten funds within Project Brunel, and was being presented to the relevant Committees over the course of the next week. The initial feasibility study and the initial business case produced on behalf of the Project by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) were set down at Annex 1 and Annex 2. These documents included detailed information on fee levels etc of the individual funds, as well as potential future fee savings. Whilst the covering report itself did not contain exempt information and was available to the public, Annexes 1 - 3 were confidential in that they contained exempt information relating to potential future commercial arrangements.

The public was therefore excluded during consideration of Annex 1 because its discussion in public would be likely to lead to the disclosure to members of the public present of information in the following prescribed category:

3.         Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) and since it is considered that, in all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, in that disclosure could distort the proper process of each of the 10 Committee’s negotiating the final proposal.  It is intended that once all Committees have agreed the final proposal for submission to Government, the final proposal will become a public document.

The public were also excluded during consideration of Annexes 2 and 3, because their discussion in public would be likely to lead to the disclosure to the members of the public present of information in the following category prescribed by Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended):

3.         Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) and since it is considered that, in all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, in that disclosure would prejudice the commercial  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4/16