Agenda item

This report sets out a summary of the annual review of the governance arrangements for the Pension Board. It also provides an overview of the annual governance review undertaken by Committee in June.

The Governance & Risk Advisor introduced the report to the Board and highlighted the following areas from it.

·  Annually in June the Avon Pension Fund Committee review its governance arrangements.

·  Scheme of Delegation - following recommendations in a recent internal audit a number of minor changes to the schedule and authorisation lists have been made to clarify roles, responsibilities and processes.

·  Pension Committee’s Terms of Reference – a change has been made to reflect decisions regarding the Local Impact Portfolio Framework being delegated to The Head of Pensions in conjunction with the working group. The formal decision will be taken by the Head of Pensions as an Officer Decision Report via the normal democratic reporting processes within Bath and North East Somerset Council. The revised Terms of Reference was approved by Council in June.

·  Conflicts of Interest Policy - a couple of changes have been made to the Pooling section to reflect the current voting arrangements for Brunel. The wording originally stated decisions required a unanimous vote, this has been updated to reflect a majority vote.

·  Under & Over Payments Policy – The Committee approved the policy in March 2024. The Fund identified the need to put in place a clear policy to establish the principles of rectification for members where there has been either an overpayment or underpayment of pension benefits.

Alison Wyatt commented regarding the Policy on the Overpayment and Underpayment of Pension Scheme Benefits and Contributions and said that she felt that a lot of instances had occurred recently.

The Governance & Risk Advisor replied that this does not happen on a regular basis outside of the ongoing work in relation to the Supplementary Pensions Increase. She added that GMP rectification may also show a high degree of instances and that the policy was in place to cover all eventualities.

The Board RESOLVED to note the report.