24 November 2025, 1:30pm
Advisory Board
Meeting Information
Venue
Beecham Room, 18 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HZ and Microsoft Teams
Combined agenda and papers
Meeting Items
Welcome, apologies and introductions
Meeting protocol and declarations of conflicts of interest
Actions and Agreements from meeting of 21 July 2025 Paper A
Response to “Scheme improvements (access and protections)” consultation Paper C
Pension Schemes Bill and pooling update
Fit for the Future – governance proposals
Peer Support project Paper D
Local Government Reorganisation
Scheme Cost Assessment process Paper E
Website upgrade project and communications update Paper F
Board and Committee Membership Paper G
Compliance & Reporting Committee report Paper H
Cost Management, Benefit Design and Administration Committee report Paper I
Investment Committee report Paper J (Annexes C and D CONFIDENTIAL, circulated via email)
Board Budget 2026/27 and Medium Term Financial Strategy Paper K (CONFIDENTIAL, circulated via email)
AOB and date of next meeting
Meeting attendance
Attendees
Apologies given
Did not attend
Summary
The minutes of the previous meeting, held on 21st July 2025, were approved and the main points arising from the meeting are shown below.
The Board were notified that LGPC had submitted a response to The Pension Regulator’s (TPR) enforcement strategy consultation. The response was broadly supportive of the strategy, but raised concerns about transparency, called for greater clarity on how enforcement decisions will be measured and prioritised, recommended that administration quality and data integrity be explicitly included in risk assessments and highlighted risks around reliance on self-reported data and TPR’s understanding of the LGPS.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced the annual rate of increase in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) for September as 3.8 per cent. The increases which apply to benefit payments in the scheme will be applied from April 2026.
On Pensions Dashboards the Board heard that three-quarters of the records in scope had been connected by 31 October which was the LGPS ‘connect by’ date. Those who had not yet connected to the dashboard were continuing to work through issues preventing connection. LGPC had published a template Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) along with explanatory notes for LGPS administering authorities to use with their AVC providers. The MoU aims to clearly define the respective responsibilities and obligations related to meeting pensions dashboards requirements for AVC data.
The Board were informed that HM Treasury (HMT) published its response to the consultation on inheritance tax (IHT) changes. The response laid out changes that will be made to proposals originally made.
A summary of the proposals in the Access and Protection consultation was provided to the Board, and the key areas of the Board’s response was discussed. It was agreed to align its response with the LGPC with areas of divergence where needed to better represent the views of the Board.
The Board discussed the Fit for the Future technical consultations. The Board noted that the technical consultation on the investment and pooling regulations had launched on 20th November 2025 with a closing date of 2nd January 2026. The consultation on the guidance accompanying the regulations would not be a public consultation and would close in January 2026. The board were informed that the CRC committee working groups had been given an opportunity to feed into the governance guidance and that MHCLG were holding pooling guidance roundtables which were arranged and supported by the Board secretariat on 14 November 2025 and 27 November 2025, this had given useful informal feedback on the guidance.
The Pensions Schemes Bill was introduced to Parliament on 5 June 2025 and Board Chair, Councillor Roger Phillips gave evidence as part of its passage though the committee stage on 2 September 2025. The Chair and Board Secretary, Clair Alcock met with Baroness Taylor from the Department for Work and Pensions on 26 November 2025 to further discuss the Bill and the impact it would have on the Scheme.
An update was given on the development of a new Board website and communications strategy. The website would be going live in January 2025, and the new communications strategy was approved by the Board. The secretariat would continue to develop the communications channels required to implement this and would develop a roll out plan for the website launch. The inaugural Board Annual Assembly was held on 22 October 2025 at the LGA offices. The aimed at pension committee and pension board chairs was successful and included sessions on training, the new peer support offer and an update from MHCLG. Plans for next year’s assembly are being worked on.
Proposals for the peer support pilot programme were presented to the Board and it was agreed to move on to the implementation phase of establishing the programme which is due to go live in 2026.
The Board were updated on progress on local government reorganisation and discussed its potential impact on the scheme. It was agreed that the Board would consider some objective criteria that could indicate that establishing a single purpose pensions authority could be a viable option for some funds.
The Government Actuary’s Department delivered a presentation on the cost management process to the Board. The presentation laid out the purpose of the process, the role of the Board and indicative timetables. The process is expected to be complete in April 2027 and updates would be brought to future Board meetings.
The Board also received an update on Code of Transparency framework project and approved the revised Code of Transparency and FAQs for publication.
The establishment of a new Pooling Steering Group was discussed. The Board received comments from the Investment Committee on the proposal and agreed to engage in further discussion with the pools to scope out the aims and positioning of the group before launching.
The 2026 Committee workplans for the Compliance and Reporting Committee, the Cost Management, Benefit Design and Administration Committee and the Investment Committee were approved.
The date of the next meeting is set for 23 March 2026 at 1:30pm.
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