This meeting was a meeting of the Buckinghamshire Pension Fund Board, which is responsible for ensuring the ongoing viability of the fund. The board was scheduled to receive reports about the performance of the fund and the companies it invests in, as well as administrative matters. The board was also scheduled to receive several verbal reports about ongoing projects being undertaken by the fund.

Pension Fund Performance

The board was scheduled to be provided with a detailed report about the investment performance of the fund. This was to include an overview of the fund's investments, including its recent performance. The board was also scheduled to receive a report on the UK Property portfolio.

Administration Performance

The board was scheduled to scrutinise a report on the performance of the team that administers the Pension Fund. The report details how many staff are employed to administer the scheme, how many members there are in the scheme, how much the scheme costs to run and how much work the team undertakes.

This report is to provide this Board with an annual comparison against measures including; staffing, scheme membership, costs & workload.

The report says that there are 88,601 members of the scheme, and that the total cost of administering the scheme in 2023/24 was £34.71 per member.

McCloud Update

The board was scheduled to be updated on the ongoing work to implement the McCloud Remedy. The McCloud remedy is the outcome of a legal case regarding age discrimination in public sector pensions. The judgement requires all public sector pension schemes to review the pension entitlements of all members, and to award them an uplift to their pension if applicable. The report to the board says that, of the Fund's 407 employers, 362 had provided the data required to calculate the value of the remedy to their employees.

As a result of the regulations coming into force, LGPS Pension Funds are required to check all qualifying members to see if underpin protection applies.

Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure

The board was scheduled to note the activities the fund had undertaken during the year to resolve disputes with its members. The Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP) is a formal procedure used by the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) to resolve disputes between scheme members, their employers, and the administrators of the scheme. The report says that there were six formal disputes during the year, four of which related to ill-health retirement.

The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) operates a two stage dispute procedure under Regulation 72 to 79 of The Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations 2013.

Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP)

The board was scheduled to discuss the Pension Dashboard Programme. The Pensions Dashboards Programme is a government initiative to create a system that allows people to see all of their pensions information in one place online. The report says that the Buckinghamshire Pension Fund was on track to meet the deadline of October 2025 for connecting to the programme, and that a detailed communication plan would be developed once the date the dashboard is launched had been announced.

The dashboard available point (DAP) is the date the dashboard will be made available to the public, with pension schemes being given 6 months’ notice of this date.

Training Opportunities

The board was scheduled to review a report on its training opportunities. The report lists all of the training opportunities that had been offered to the board by organisations such as the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).

Board members are expected to complete The Pensions Regulator’s Public Sector Toolkit and visit these periodically.

Internal Administration Benchmarking

The board was scheduled to review a report benchmarking the performance of the LGPS administration team against previous years. The report details the way the team is structured, the number of staff it employs, how much those staff are paid and how long they've worked for the team. The report also analyses the volume of work the team completed in the year.

MPO Registration Transition Statistics

The board was scheduled to receive a verbal report about the progress being made transitioning members to the new My Pension Online (MPO) system. MPO is a secure online service that allows members of the LGPS to view their pension information and manage their accounts online.

TPR - General Code of Practice

The board was also scheduled to receive two verbal reports on The Pension Regulator's General Code of Practice. The Pensions Regulator is a non-departmental public body that regulates workplace pension schemes in the UK. The General Code of Practice sets out the standards that The Pensions Regulator expects of those involved in running pension schemes.