Issue - meetings

The Committee noted the report and discussed the progress being made by the Wales Pension Partnership.

The Chairman stated that there has not been a Joint Governance Committee since the last Committee. The Chairman passed over this item of the agenda to Mr Latham who emphasised the Wales Pension Partnership (WPP) is making good progress. The investment platform is in place and agenda item 10 relates to the first transition of assets.  However, there are governance and investment matters that will be considered at future JGC’s or by individual authorities.

A reference was made to the letter from the Minister for Local Government. Mr Hibbert commented on the increasing reporting costs for the WPP and an increased reliance on advisors and consultants when the objective is aiming to reduce costs.  Mr Latham said that the reality is that there will be costs for the pooling in Wales but he is confident that WPP will be one of the best performing pools over time in terms of value for money.

Cllr Rutherford asked whether the reporting costs associated with pooling will be reimbursed and how these costs will be reported.  Mrs Fielder responded that the running of the WPP is part of the overall operational costs and would be shared by all Funds as part of the costs recharged through the platform.

Mrs McWilliam also said that she had attended the Scheme Advisory Board meeting on Monday and they were going to write to all the pools to determine whether they intend to have a scheme member representative and the reasons if they do not.

Mrs McWilliam explained that there was a BBC article on Monday about the Fund investing in fracking. The article implied that Welsh funds have direct fracking investments and highlighted the Paris Agreement, Environment (Wales) Act and the Well-being of Future Generations Act. . Mrs McWilliam queried whether this was an accurate statement. Cllr Llewelyn Jones said it showed that the Fund has £10 million invested in fracking investments.

Mr Everett confirmed that the Fund is not undertaking any unlawful activities and that the Welsh Government is looking into the policy now. Mr Harkin emphasised that there was no direct investment here and the actual investment exposure to fracking companies was £7.6 million in 2016 (0.4% of the fund assets at that time). In most cases it may be that the company could have an element of fracking investment within their business structure and so they are not actually exposed to a fracking company (although it is a small amount in relation to the size of the Fund).

RESOLVED:

The Committee noted the report and discussed the progress being made by the Wales Pension Partnership.