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In April, Avon Pension Fund signed the 2022 annual ‘Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis’, alongside over 500 other investors managing nearly $39 trillion in AUM. This statement was made public on the IIGCC IIGCC website yesterday, ahead of COP27 in Egypt in November.

The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) has published a factsheet on McCloud. The factsheet sets out TPO’s views on what affected members and schemes can do now and TPO’s present approach to dealing with McCloud complaints.

TPO’s general starting position is that it would not investigate McCloud complaints. This is because it acknowledges that the Government is taking steps to address the discrimination with retrospective effect. TPO will, however, carefully look at the facts of each case before deciding whether to investigate.

We're pleased to bring you our Statement of Compliance with the UK Stewardship Code covering the year 2020 to 31 March 2021. 

Councillor Paul Crossley, Chair of the Pension Committee, said this in recognition of this latest release:

We’re pleased to bring you our Annual Engagement Highlights for 2021, carried out by EOS Federated Hermes on behalf of Avon Pension Fund. The report outlines our engagement and voting ESG activity for 2021. 

At the end of 2021 we published our very first Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report. Today, we’re pleased to publish our Climate Action Plan – outlining the four key pillars of disclosure taken from that report that will help us reach our goal of becoming a net-zero investor by 2050 or earlier.

Following the disclosures set out by the TCFD is not yet compulsory for LGPS funds, so we are proud to be blazing the trail in this way.

As the worrying situation in Ukraine continues to unfold, we wanted to bring you a joint statement from the Chair of the Avon Pension Fund Committee – Councillor Paul Crossley, and the Chair of the Avon Pension Fund Investment Panel – Councillor Shaun Stephenson-McGall.

“As a leader in the field of responsible investment and where social factors, specifically human rights, form a key pillar of our responsible investment principles, we were shocked to learn of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and we are naturally concerned about the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the region.

In 2018, a court ruled that pension schemes must ‘equalise’ the Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) benefits for men and women. Currently, they are linked to the old state pension ages of 60 (for women) and 65 (for men).

GMPs are intended to be paid from the old state pension ages for men and women alike, (their ‘GMP age’), however they are not paid as well as a pension. This is because it is already included within the make-up of the pension. That said, the different starting ages for men and women can, in some instances, create inequality.

The Avon Pension Fund is pleased to publish its latest Responsible Investment Annual Report.

The report details the activities undertaken during 2021 by the Fund, our managers and our partners to deliver and support our Responsible Investing Policy.

Following a consultation, in 2017 the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) issued initial recommendations for reporting to help stakeholders in financial markets understand their climate risks and opportunities. This covers the areas of Governance, Strategy, Risk and Metrics & Targets and Avon Pension Fund has now adopted this guidance and set out its own disclosures in this report.

Avon Pension Fund is pleased to announce it is transitioning its entire legacy low carbon equity strategy (~£780m) into the recently launched Paris Aligned Benchmark (PAB) developed by FTSE Russell and Brunel Pension Partnership.