Thursday, June 11, 2009

Revolution Now! TU Members on LGPS Pension Panel and Committee!

Okay, okay - there is just a little bit of hyperbole in this title but this evening I did attend a Tower Hamlets Investment Panel and Pension Committee which allowed full trade union representation for the first time.

A little bit of background for folk who for some strange reason are not fully aware of the vital importance of LGPS (Local government pension scheme) governance issues. I have been a trade union “observer” on the Tower Hamlets Council Pension panel for about 15 years and an “unofficial” observer on its pension “committee” (often renamed) for about 5 years.

Uniquely – the LGPS is the only funded pension scheme in Europe were contributing members of the scheme have no legally binding representation on the decision making bodies of the scheme (e.g. trustees) who until now have all been local councillors. Click on here and here why this is a bad idea.

After years of campaigning UNISON (with many thanks to Colin Meech the National Officer for Capital Stewardship and his team) the Government changed guidance to “encourage” LGPS to allow member representation as “best practice”. Well done to all the UNISON pension activists (and in other unions) who have finally achieved some success.

A small number of successful LGPS have always allowed representation the vast majority have not. The situation is still unsatisfactory. My scheme is only allowing 2 trade union members on the pension panel and one on the pension committee (initially as an “official” observer).

Often in the Labour movement it is two steps forward to be followed by 1 (or sometimes 3) steps back. So for something quite dramatic to have happened that I have argued for some 10 years is really pleasing. Still much more to do (we want 50% representation) as many schemes are still refusing any staff side representation but it is a start.

There will hopefully be an election of trade union members to confirm who will be the reps.

This is important not only for democratic representation but also for the viability of the pension fund and even the wider economy. The Tower Hamlets fund is worth (even now) over £500 million. The total size of the LGPS nationally is over £100 Billion. It is vitally important that these schemes are properly run.

(Main Picture – by co-incidence this week is the anniversary of the 1381 Peasants Revolt - on Sunday Wat Tyler met the King at Mile End in Tower Hamlets – it didn’t end happily at the time but eventually after some 500 years we got a democracy of sorts – hopefully we will get proper representation in the LGPS sooner than this without any revolts or stabbings - 2 steps forward and all that)

I'll post on the meetings once I have reported to the TUJCC.

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