Local Government Pension Scheme (Management and Investment of Funds) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These regulations further amend the Local Government Pension Scheme (Management and Investment of Funds) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 (“the principal Regulations”).

The amendments made by regulations 3 to 5 and 7 are a consequence of the principal repeals and revocations made by Article 3 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Consequential Amendments and Repeals) Order 2001 (S.I. 2001/3649). References to enactments repealed, or to expressions used in those enactments, have been amended in the principal Regulations so that they now refer to the appropriate provisions or expressions under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Regulation 6 adds a provision to the principal Regulations requiring the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers' Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC) to publish a written statement of investment principles. The new provision requires that such statement must set out the extent to which NILGOSC complies with the ten principles of investment practice contained in the document published in April 2002 by CIPFA, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and called “CIPFA Pensions Panel Principles for Investment Decision Making in the Local Government Pension Scheme in the United Kingdom (Guidance note issue No. 5)”. NILGOSC must publish, by no later than 20th January 2004, its policy on the extent to which it complies with the ten principles and give its reasons where it does not comply.

The Guidance Note can be purchased from CIPFA, 3 Robert Street, London WC2N 6RL, tel. [phone]. The publication costs £50 to members of the public, £25 to local authorities and £12.50 to NILGOSC.

The ten investment principles were issued by the Government in October 2001 in response to proposals in the Myners Review of Institutional Investment in the United Kingdom, issued in March 2001. Further information about these can be obtained from HM Treasury Public Enquiry Unit. Tel. [phone] or from HM Treasury’s web site www.hm-treasury.gov.uk.

Regulation 8 is a transitional provision which provides that NILGOSC is not required to prepare a new statement of investment principles but only to revise the statement in operation immediately before these regulations come into operation.