General Code of Practice checker – available soon

The Pension Regulator’s (TPR’s) General Code of Practice is expected to be effective from 27 March. Around the time of its release, we expect funds will want to assess their current levels of compliance. Our team has designed a comprehensive self-assessment tool for practitioners covering all LGPS relevant areas of the new Code. The tool will allow officers to gauge current compliance levels and monitor ongoing progress. It also provides an editable report that can be presented to stakeholders, such as Pension Committee and Board, and the ability to track and report on progress over time. We’re providing a demo (register here) of our compliance checker on 13 March, with the checker tool available week commencing 18 March. If you’d like any further information, please get in touch.

UK venture and growth capital

The UK government wishes to boost the economy by making it a more attractive place for companies to start up, and eventually list on a stock exchange. One approach is to steer pension fund money towards venture and growth capital. The ambition for the LGPS is to invest 10% of assets in private equity, with a preference for UK venture and growth capital. But what is this asset class and should the LGPS be considering it? We’ve outlined our thoughts in a briefing note.

The finish line is in sight for Scotland

With the statutory deadline looming, final reports are being signed off for the Scottish 2023 valuations. This will be the first time each valuation report will include a Section 13 dashboard and commentary on climate risk. Of course, there is no rest for our actuarial team as preparation for the 2025 and 2026 valuations is already underway! With this in mind, we will be in touch with all our Scottish funds to set up a feedback meeting, to take all the learnings and experiences from the 2023 valuations and build them into our future plans.  

Scottish Amendment Regulations

Local Government Pension Scheme (Scotland) amendment regulations 2024 come into force on 28 March 2024 and will be backdated to 31 March 2023. These amendments cover changes to the CARE annual revaluation date, triennial actuarial valuations, and employer cessation valuations. We welcome these amendments and have produced a briefing note detailing which regulations have changed along with our thoughts. The change that allows an indicative cessation valuation to replace a final cessation valuation, if actual exit occurs within the subsequent 90 days, can introduce extra risks for a fund. Please speak to your Fund actuary about how these risks can be managed.

Business planning

With business planning in full flow ahead of the new financial year, this will be a current ‘hot topic’ for many LGPS funds. If you need a hand, we previously hosted two webinars on the subject. Both are still available and relevant - webinar 1 covered topics such as horizon scanning and stakeholder engagement whilst webinar 2 focussed on success measures, planning for implementation and delivery, and monitoring and reporting.

Excess deaths – what did we expect?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has announced a new calculation method for estimating excess deaths in the UK. How does the new approach affect the assessment of excess deaths when examining population changes, mortality rate trends, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic? Read Club Vita's blog to find out more.

FRM – Scotland joins the party and some new features

With the 2023 valuations ending, Scottish funds can now access our self-service Funding and Risk Monitoring (“FRM”) tool that tracks daily whole fund and employer funding analytics on-demand. Following its initial launch on 1 April 2023, we’ve been enhancing the features that are available with the tool. The latest addition this month allows users to chart daily assumptions for future returns and inflation. Please speak to your Hymans consultant for further details about FRM.

InflationWatch

LGPS benefits are due to increase in April by 6.7% (based on annual CPI as at September last year). However, since then, inflation has been falling but remains high relative to the Bank of England’s target rate. Our latest edition of InflationWatch looks at market indicators, consensus forecasts around future inflation and our view on whether the risks to the consensus view are tilted to the upside or downside.