Governance and Training 

Scheme governance overview  

At scheme level, the governance regime for LGPS administering authorities in England and Wales is set by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). 

The role of the Scheme Advisory Board is to help and support MHCLG and administering authorities fulfil their statutory duties and obligations. The Board’s secretariat, hosted within the Local Government Association, assists the Board to discharge its functions. 

Account must also be taken of guidance issued by the Pensions Regulator and Pensions Ombudsman determinations.  

The investment and management of LGPS assets, the collection of employer and employee contributions and payment of pension benefits is the responsibility of individual LGPS administering authorities. There are 86 LGPS administering authorities in England and Wales. 

Regulation 55 of the LGPS Regulations 2013 requires all administering authorities to publish a governance compliance statement and explain any non-compliance. Each administering authority is subject to an annual external audit and must publish an audited financial statement and annual report by statutory deadlines. 

The Board has established the Compliance and Reporting Committee (CRC) which has the functions of: 

• Providing support and guidance to administering authorities in delivering compliance and reporting 

• Engaging with regulators to clarify compliance requirements and encourage the integration and appropriate simplification of those requirements 

• Seeking to promote the development of clear, appropriate, meaningful and transparent reporting to stakeholders. 

The Committee also reports into the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Public Finance Management Board (PFMB) to ensure that its work on governance is integrated into CIPFA’s policy and technical work. 

Pension Fund Annual Report guidance published  

In March 2024, updated guidance for preparing the fund annual report was published on the Board’s guidance page. This guidance is the first publication which has been reviewed and jointly approved by the CRC, CIPFA and MHCLG.  

The new guidance applies to fund annual reports from 2023-24 onwards and has been reflected in this Scheme Annual Report, where possible.  

The guidance says funds should use their best endeavours to comply fully with the requirements for 2023-24 but exercise judgement where, because of changes to the previous content, to do so would require disproportionate effort or cost.  

Where possible, compliance with the new guidance has been reviewed as part of the scheme annual report data collection exercise, but as this is the first reporting year under the new guidance, this year’s Scheme Annual Report does not include an overall compliance report against the new guidance.  

Instead, where data has been collected on compliance and is useful, this has been reported in the relevant Scheme Annual Report sections and a summary is provided below:  

¹Annual reports were marked as compliant if fund annual reports had at least 3 of the 5 governance requirements sampled to be collected this first year. 

²Annual reports were marked as compliant if fund annual reports had at least 6 of the 8 administration requirements sampled to be collected this first year. 

³Annual reports were marked as compliant if fund annual reports had reported at least 75 per cent of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) sampled to be collected this first year. 

At the point at which this data was collected (February 2025), 23 administering authorities had completed the audit of their 2023-24 accounts. However, by the date of publication of this Scheme Annual Report (May 2025), 30 administering authorities have now completed the audit of their 2023-24 accounts.  

Scheme governance and training reporting overview  

The fund annual report guidance sets out key information for funds to report with their governance structure and how it has complied with its Governance Compliance Statement. When collecting data for the Scheme Annual Report some data reported by funds has been collected and aggregated, but not all is suitable or can be easily collated and published at scheme level (i.e. commentary or notes).  

Where data has been collated, a summary is below of the findings: 

85 Funds (98%) noted the representation for scheme members and employers in their fund report. This figure includes both Pension Committee and Pension Boards. 

68 Funds (78%) reported on the number of meetings both their Pension Committee and Board held. With the average number of meetings being 8 

65 funds (75%) noted their conflicts of interest policy within their reports. 

81 funds (93%) reported on the training undertaken by each committee and board member 

73 Funds (84%) noted their approach to voting rights within their governance structures reports for both Pension Committee and Pension Board   

*Fund size: Small fund - below £2.5bn 

Medium fund - between £2.5bn-£5bn 

Large fund – over £5bn.