The Head of Governance and Corporate Services provided Local Pension Board members with an update on decisions made by the Authority and its Committees, and any decisions taken under the urgency procedure between meetings of the Authority.

Members queried the underspend of £328k approved by the Authority at the meeting on 5 June 2025 and asked whether this underspend could be used to pay staff or contractors to work on clearing the backlog.

The Assistant Director – Resources broke down the underspend explaining that £138k of this underspend by the Authority had to be transferred to the Fund but that the remainder of the underspend was transferred to reserves and that, while some reserves were set aside for specific projects and costs, the budgets were regularly monitored and forecasts made regarding under-spends, the use of reserves and any expenditure requirements. This enables the use of available reserve balances and / or in-year under-spends where appropriate, such as for additional overtime costs for workload pressures arising from staff vacancies in particular. This has happened this year already with under-spends being used to finance staff overtime in pensions administration for focussed work on casework backlogs and priority areas for the valuation.

The Independent Adviser noted the Authority had completed their first Effectiveness Review and asked whether there was scope for collaboration between the Authority and the LPB on their 2025-26 Effectiveness Reviews in 2026. The Head of Governance and Corporate Services agreed to note the suggestion and arrange for this to be discussed at the forthcoming joint meeting of the Authority and LPB Chairs and Vice Chairs.

RESOLVED: Members noted and commented upon the decisions included in the report.