In September 2025 thousands of our members will receive an invitation to participate in the investments survey. The survey will ask whether they think the Fund should continue investing in Aerospace & Defence companies.
Between 1 and 16 September, around 20,000 randomly selected members will receive an email, inviting them to take part in a survey taking less than 5 minutes to complete.
We aim to receive at least 1,000 survey responses from these members, which will deliver statistically robust survey results.
Only members randomly selected to receive the invitation can take part in the survey. Pension fund staff, Committee and Board members will not take part in the survey.
To ensure the research is conducted to the highest standards, the Fund has commissioned an independent agency, Prevision Research, to design the survey, analyse the data, and present findings. Prevision has deep expertise assessing challenging public policy issues and belongs to the Market Research Society, ensuring that all research is anonymous and confidential.
Prevision will ensure that responses are representative of the total Fund membership by age and gender, in particular ensuring that smaller groups (at each end of the age range) are fairly represented. Survey findings will be weighted to ensure that members responding have the same demographic profile as the actual membership.
Avon Pension Fund will publish the survey results later this year, when the Pension Committee will make its decision on investments in Aerospace & Defence based on the survey results along with legal and financial considerations.
We will confirm the date of the relevant Pension Committee meeting as soon as practical. Please keep an eye on our website for further updates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will you survey all members?
We will survey around 20% of our membership. Surveying a large sample of 20,000 randomly selected members should generate around 1,000 survey responses, which will provide statistically robust results.
We have around 100,000 unique members, who between them hold around 145,000 pension accounts with us.
Polling all members would cost much more without yielding materially more statistically robust results.
Will I get a survey invite?
Keep an eye on your email inbox – and don’t forget to check your junk folder just in case. We’ll send the email invite to members between 1 and 16 September. If you do not receive an invite by this date, your email address has not been randomly selected to be involved in the research.
We cannot add or remove email addresses from the sample, because it has been created to represent our overall membership.
Who can participate in the survey?
The sample includes 20,000 members we hold permission to contact by email. Avon Pension Fund staff, Committee and Board members are excluded from participating in the survey, and will not receive an email invite.
The survey can be answered only by those invited to take the survey.
When will we hear the results of the survey?
The survey results, collated by the external research provider, will be shared publicly later this year, so please keep an eye on our website for updates.