Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies for absence were received from David Hughes (Director of Audit, Fraud, Risk and Insurance).

Apologies for lateness were received from Bruce Mackay and Patsy Ishmael (who entered the room at 7.14pm).

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter.  The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 12^th November 2024 as an accurate record.

RESOLVED

That the Pensions board agreed the open and exempt minutes of meeting held on 12^th November 2024.

To note the minutes of the Pension Fund Committee meetings held on 26^th November 2024.

This item includes appendices that contain exempt information. Discussion of the appendices will require passing the proposed resolution at the end of the agenda to exclude membersof the public and press.

RESOLVED

That the Pension Board noted the open and exempt minutes of Pension Fund Committee meetings held on 26^th November 2024.

This paper sets out a summary of the performance of the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA) in providing a pension administration service to the Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the period September - December 2024, i.e. quarter 3 (Q3), are shown in Appendix 1.

Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) introduced the report which provided a summary of the performance of the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA) in providing a pension administration service to the Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund for quarter 3 (Q3) of 2024/25. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) detailed in Appendix 1 of the pension administration report covered the period from 1^st  September 2024 to 31^st December 2024. It was noted that there was satisfactory performance particularly in sensitive cases such as deaths and processing of retirements.

William O’Connell (Co-opted Member) noted the disproportionate increase in the number of dissatisfied customers and the low response rate of the customer satisfaction survey. He asked if there was any reason for it. Eleanor Dennis replied that this would be addressed in the Pension Administration update report.

The Chair congratulated Eleanor Dennis and her team for the good performance, noting that there had been improvement in retirements, transfers, and refunds. He enquired if there were any quality issues with active retirements and deaths. Eleanor Dennis pointed out that there were remaining quality issues with the service. While most cases were processed on time, the team still experienced issues with duplicated information being requested and often having to chase LPPA to ensure that the Service Level Agreement (SLA) target was met. It was also noted that there could be errors with payment calculations and retirement dates, leading to quality issues with retirement and deaths. Whilst cases were now being processed on time, LPPA had to work on ensuring that the quality would meet the SLA.

The Chair noted that the sample size for the customer satisfaction scores was too small and asked if there was any reason for the significant figure for dissatisfaction. Eleanor Dennis replied that this question would be addressed in the Pension Administration update.

RESOLVED

The Pensions Board noted the contents of this report.

The Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund (HFPF) delegates its administration duties to Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA). This paper provides a summary of activity in key areas of pension administration for the HFPF.

Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) presented the report which set out the summary of activity in pension administration. The following key aspects were highlighted:

• The number of complaints had continued to decrease – there was only one at the end of quarter 3.
• Callers to the help desk were satisfied overall. The average wait time was 2 minutes 3 seconds compared to 2 minutes 7 seconds in quarter 2.
• The year-to-date pension administration costs were £414,719, which were 1% above target. This was due to additional expenditure on resources, as more people were needed to process the higher case numbers and ensure that KPIs were met. The cost per member remained the same at £30.64.

Addressing the low response rate to customer satisfaction surveys, it was noted that the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA) was working on increasing the number of responses. It remained difficult as most people who were satisfied or neutral were unlikely to respond to the surveys. The figures were also influenced by the small numbers of cases, which explained the sizeable percentage of dissatisfaction. At the Pension Fund Committee meeting last year, LPPA confirmed that they were trying to entice members to respond via vouchers and they would continue to work on increasing the level of responses.

The Chair enquired about the progress made with regards to initiatives by LPPA. This included the introduction of a client relationship manager, training academy for their staff, and client and employer forums. Eleanor Dennis noted that the client mailbox was a work in progress as sometimes there was no response from the mailbox and the Pensions team would have to escalate cases to a named individual for any action to be taken. The forums were still at an early stage as only two had taken place. Only one employer attended the employer forum so there was work to done in increasing representation from Hammersmith & Fulham Fund employers. The client relationship manager had worked well in the last 12 months, but it was going through some changes, so it remained something to be monitored.

Noting that the report mentioned LPPA had enhanced the information on their website regarding divorce, the Chair asked if there were any key updates to highlight. Eleanor Dennis replied that LPPA periodically updated information on their website and the divorce section just went through a regular refresh for clarity. There was no change to legislation regarding pensions and divorce.

RESOLVED

The Pensions Board noted the contents of this report.

This paper provides the Pensions Board with a summary of the Pension Fund’s overall performance for the quarter ended 30 September 2024, cashflow update and forecast, and assessment of risks and actions taken to mitigate these.

Sian Cogley (Pension Fund Manager) presented the paper which provided a summary of the Pension Fund’s overall performance for quarter 3. She noted that there had been some updates to the information available in the report since the publication of the paper as follows:

• Performance had continued to be positive. In the quarter ended 31 December 2024, the market value of assets increased by £54 million to £1.428 billion.
• The total fund had outperformed its benchmark net of fees by 0.83% delivering an absolute return of 2.95% over the quarter.
• The total fund delivered a positive return of 9.86% over the year to 31 December 2024.

A few additional points were highlighted:

• At the meeting of 26^th November 2024, the Pension Fund Committee agreed to invest £35 million in the Quinbrook Renewables Impact Fund II. The first drawdown for this investment was completed in January 2025. 
• Initial planning had started on the 2025 Triennial Valuation process with cashflows and membership data for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 financial years uploaded to the actuary’s portal for data cleansing.
• Following interviews on 21^st January 2025, the Committee appointed Sam Gervaise-Jones as their new investment advisor.

In response to the requests of the previous Board, Sian Cogley noted that the majority of the current Board members were invited to the Triborough training session held on 30^th September 2024 and was attended by co-opted member Bruce Mackay. The contact list had been updated to reflect recent changes to the Board membership and all Board members would now be notified of future trainings. She invited Board members to suggest any topics that they would like to receive training on, which could then be facilitated by the training team. Regarding the valuation of the Aviva redemption, the Pension Fund had received the final redemption money, the final distribution of income and the rebate of management fees that were previously applied from 1^st January 2024. The matter was now treated as concluded as no further action could be taken.

Councillor Nikos Souslous enquired about the process and purpose of hiring the new investment advisor. Sian Cogley replied that the Committee interviewed 3 candidates for the advisor position in January 2025. The purpose of the advisor was to provide an independent and expert opinion other than that of officers and Isio to members of the Committee.

Noting that Kensington and Chelsea had announced that it would stop making contribution to its pension fund in the next year, William O’Connell (Co-opted Member) questioned if assurances could be provided if Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) would not be doing the same. Sian Cogley assured that this would not come into question for the Council. While the H&F Pension Fund was fully funded, they would not support an opinion of having a 0% employer contribution rate.

Referring to the note in the report that the large September variance was due to receiving the Aviva Redemption Monies, the Chair pointed out that the £2.5 million loss should be noted.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Local Government Act 1972 – Access

To Information Proposed resolution:

The Committee is invited to resolve, under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they contain the likely disclosure of exempt information, as defined in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the said Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Not required.