Issue - meetings

Purpose:  To provide Committee Members with the Draft Clwyd Pension Fund Financial Statements for approval.

(a)  The Committee members considered the draft accounts and Annual Governance Statement and noted the WAO Audit Plan.

   The Chairman passed this item of the agenda to Mr Vaughan who clarified that this item is based on the draft Fund accounts and the final audited Fund accounts will be presented at the next Committee meeting in September.

Page 23 and 24 contain the income and expenditure of the Fund. In 2018/19 there were contributions of c£74m which is significantly less than the previous year of c£105m because three employers chose to pay all of their deficit contributions in 2017/18.

Overall in the Fund accounts, there was an increase of c£81m in the assets over the year.

Cllr Bateman asked for more detail on note 10 in relation to the management expenses. Mr Vaughan said that page 34 outlines the oversight and governance costs which include work in preparation for the Actuarial Valuation in 2019. There has been an increase in consultant fees over the year in relation to the Flightpath and Project Apple. The administration costs are due to the additional resources as well as the outsourcing activities. Mr Vaughan also mentioned that the Fund management fees in note 10a were higher in 2017/18.

Mrs McWilliam highlighted that she had some minor suggested amendments to be made relating to the Annual Governance Statement which she would feedback directly to the officers.

Mr Ferguson confirmed that these accounts will be taken to the Council’s Audit Committee meeting on 10^th July.

Mrs Phoenix from the Welsh Audit Office talked through some of the key points from the 2019 Audit Plan on page 67 highlighting the audit fee on page 73.

In terms of Annual Governance Statement (AGS), Cllr Jones noted that there is an identifiable risk involved with having new Committee members. Mrs McWilliam confirmed that this was already incorporated within the Fund's risk register and this risk would be mitigated through training.

RESOLVED:

(a)  The Committee members considered the draft accounts and Annual Governance Statement and noted the WAO Audit Plan.