Issue - meetings

The Committee had before it a report by the Chief Officer – Finance which provided an update on recent developments and made recommendations (if applicable) to any changes required to the North East Scotland Pension Fund.

The report provided an update on Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) pensions and Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) pots; the LGPS (Remediable Service)(Scotland)(Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2024 which would amend the underpin rules; staff training; fraud, whistleblowing and breaches of the Bribery Act (none noted); details of the appointment of Hymans Robertson LLP as the new scheme actuary; the exit of Sanctuary Scotland from the scheme; and the latest position with pensions dashboards.

The report advised that changes had also been made to the following documents:-

·       Governance Policy (some minor grammatical corrections, updates to Terms of Reference following annual governance reviews)

·       Risk Management Policy (replaced references to tPR’s CoP14 to GCoP)

·       Cyber Security Policy (minor amendments to improve clarify, again references updated from CoP14 to CGoP, updated names of current external services providers)

·       Local Contingency Plan (Added in references to new cyber security measures e.g. member contact details extracted monthly, updated wording across the document for clarity and staffing updates)

·       Statement of Investment Principles (revised wording on exclusion policy)

The report recommended:-

that the Committee –

(a)      note the updates to the Fund Policy documents (item 6.2 of the main report);

(b)      note the update to the Authorised Signatory List (item 6.6 of the main report); and

(c)      note the remainder of the report for reassurance.

Members asked a number of questions on the report in respect of the risk register, relating to Committee membership, the NESPF operating model and cyber security.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)       to note that information would be circulated to Members in the event of any future changes to Pension Committee and Board membership;

(ii)       to note that there would be a report to a future meeting on the operating model for the Fund; and

(iii)      to approve the recommendations.