Thursday, June 19, 2008

Capital Stewardship Fringe

Once again, apologies for being posting so late. On Monday evening after the end of local government conference, there was a fringe on “Capital Stewardship”, which updated delegates on the latest in the negotiations between the unions and the civil servants on member representation on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

It appears that the government have clearly failed to properly implement a European directive (called an IORP!) This is the “Directive on the Activities and Supervision of Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision” (very boring but very important).

In a nutshell a funded pension scheme must be run in the interests of the beneficiaries not the employer. Also, the fund must have a separate identify from the employer. UNISON is confident that this IORP cannot be lawfully complied with unless beneficiaries (our trade union members) have representatives with voting rights on local pension investment panels or boards.

One example of the current, let us say “questionable use” of our pension funds is that some Councils lend our money either to themselves or other councils and only charge a small basic interest rate (Bank of England rate). When they could much better interest rates on the open market. What this means is that our pension money is being used to subsidise Council tax.

Fascinating stuff I had to leave early to go to our regional delegation meeting. Later that night was the social highlight of conference – the Labour Link “Do”. A good time was had by all.

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