The FRC categorise signatories of the stewardship code based on the quality of their statement of compliance, the Avon Pension Fund has been awarded the highest Tier 1 assessment:
Tier 1 - Signatories provide a good quality and transparent description of their approach to stewardship and explanations of an alternative approach where necessary.
The Fund has a Responsible Investing (RI) Policy in place to address the impact of RI issues on the investments portfolio. The Committee have updated the policy (previously agreed in June 2012) to reflect the long term risks and opportunities arising from such issues.
The Annual Allowance is the amount by which the value of your pension benefits may increase in any one year without you having to pay a tax charge.
The HMRC has set up an online Annual Allowance calculator so that pension scheme members can check:
The Government is likely to introduce the cap of £95,000 on the total value of exit payments, such as those made on voluntary and compulsory redundancy, early next year.
The Government has provided the following update on the exit payments cap and the recovery regulations:
There will be a further consultation this autumn on regulations for the £95,000 exit payments cap, so they will not be in force in October as originally anticipated. Following this consultation it is hoped that regulations will be published and in force early next year.
Members usually pay tax if their pension pots are worth more than the Lifetime Allowance. The allowance is currently £1 million. While the majority of members of the Local Government Pension Scheme will be unaffected, those members that are may be able to apply for protections and an online facility to register for Fixed Protection 2016 and Individual Protection 2016 is now open for individuals to access.
The Local Government Association (LGA) has produced a series of questions and answers on investment reform for the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
There will be a delay in the sending of the annual pension benefit statement for deferred members who left the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.
If you previously paid into the LGPS but haven’t yet retired you are known as a deferred member and your pension benefits are frozen or preserved.
As a deferred member every year we send you your Annual Deferred Pension Statement, which shows the current value of your deferred benefits you have with the Avon Pension Fund as at 6 April.
If you are paying into the local government pension scheme (LGPS) you will receive an Annual Pension Benefit Statement from the Avon Pension Fund during August.
It shows the pension you have built up to 31 March 2016 as well as a future projection of your benefits if you remain paying into the scheme to your Normal Pension Age (NPA). This is the age you would retire and take your benefits without any reduction to your pension.
The statements will be posted out to you during August.
The following statement has been issued by DCLG with regard to “Brexit” and the LGPS:
“The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) - Implications of the EU referendum
"The question of how, if at all, the result in favour of 'Brexit' will impact on the LGPS has been raised by scheme members and employers as well as the press and other 'commentators' on all things LGPS.
In the July 2015 budget the government announced that they wanted the 89 Local Government Pension Scheme funds to pool their investments into larger pools in order to achieve savings in investment management costs. Following this in the Autumn Statement, the government published the criteria for the pooling of LGPS investment assets.
In response to the government agenda, the Avon Pension Fund has explored options for the pooling of its investment assets with the other eight LGPS funds in the south west*, a group that has already worked collaboratively over a considerable period of time. Two other funds, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire have joined the group which is now called “Project Brunel”, with collective assets of c. £23 billion.
