Issue - meetings

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Resources which provided updates for the Committee and recommendations (if applicable) to any changes required to the North East Scotland Pension Fund and the Aberdeen City Council Transport Fund.

The report provided an update on the response to the consultation on Guaranteed Minimum Pension indexation in Public Service Pension Schemes; training which had been undertaken by Pension Fund staff as well as an update on recruitment and the case for increasing staff resources; and an update that there had been 26 new breaches of law recorded during 2020/21 with most of these being related to scheme employers failing to meet their statutory obligations, for example, late payment of pension contributions.

It was further noted that there had been minor amendments to the following documents which could be viewed on the NESPF website:-

·       NESPF Business Plan 2021/24

·       Statement of Investment Principles.

The report recommended:-

that Committee –

(a)      approve the updated NESPF Business Plan 2021/24 and the updated Statement of Investment Principles Policy as set out in section 3.9.4 of the report; and

(b)      approve the additional posts of 1 x Senior Pension Officer – Employer Relationship, 1 x Senior Pension Officer – Systems, 1 x Pension Officer – Training & Development and 3 x Trainee Pension Officer – Benefit Administration as set out in section 3.9.6 of the report.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)       in relation to Appendix 1 (Pension Administration Strategy) and the table at page 200, to note that the additional targets for completed cases during the reporting period for notification of death in service should be 2, rather than 1 as stated in the table;

(ii)       to note the comments from Mrs Lawrence in respect of pensioners who had contacted her to advise that they had not been aware that they could claim their pensions now, and to note that officers would look at the documentation provided to ensure there was clarity on this point; and

(iii)      to approve the recommendations.

The Board resolved:-

to note the decision of the Committee.