LGA Governance


Agenda item

Agenda item

Pensions Scheme Board Chair

Malcolm Eastwood, Chair of the Scheme Advisory Board

Minutes:

The Chair of the Pensions Scheme Advisory Board, Malcolm Eastwood, gave members an update on the work of the Board, and confirmed that Cllr Roger Philips and Fiona Twycross had been appointed to sit on the Board, alongside Cllrs Roger Price, John Bell, Thomas Wright, and Tristan Ashby from the Retained Firefighters Union, who sits on the Board as an employee representative. Malcolm advised that the board now had a website which can be found here.

 

Malcolm advised members that Fire and Rescue Authorities are defined as the scheme manager under the terms of the Firefighter Pension Regulations and therefore have the ultimate responsibility. However, the regulations give the FRAs the ability to delegate the management of the scheme manager role and members should ensure that effective management was in place. He said that there was an indication from the Pensions Regulator that they were looking at this extremely closely and were issuing fines where contraventions were found. Malcolm drew members’ attention to the free training offered by the LGA, suggesting that they contacted Clair Alcock if there was any interest in free annual training offered to FRAs. Members were also told about free to attend tax seminars that had been commissioned by the Scheme Advisory Board in partnership with the Police Pension Scheme. Details of these events can be found here. Members were encouraged to champion fire pensions to scheme members, and ensure that they were managing their delegation of scheme managers where appropriate. Members should be aware of the risks involved but should also proactively support their local pensions boards.

 

Decision:

 

Members noted the update.

Supporting documents: