Agenda item

The Committee received the Audit Completion Report of the External Auditor relating to the Durham County Council Pension Fund, for the year ended 31 March 2023 (for copy see file of minutes).

C Waddell, Mazars stated that nothing had changed.  Key changes had been evaluated throughout the year with the supply of information to inform the local pension authority on how much to pay for the next three years.  The membership was up to date and the accounts again were unqualified.

T Blackhouse, Mazars agreed to process the completion of the audit as soon as possible with membership data that would be included in the follow up letter.  He confirmed that there had been no changes.  He noted that the evaluation allowance included risk because of the nature of the investment.  Durham County Council had supplied a high quality of accounts with significant internal controls.  

Mr I Rudd was intrigued with the internal control and agreed the balance border to coast pension contributions.  He queried if there had been a change in the system as it was the same company but had slight differences.

P Darby acknowledged that border to coast pooled the pension assets, which had been done for last 9 years.  He was unsure what was in the report that had changed as it was comparative to others.  He assumed the interpretation of their information may differ from time to time if there was a different advisor analysing the information.

J McMahon advised that discussions had taken place with other local authorities who had expressed the same issue on the report.  A workshop was to be arranged with the BCPP relations manager so that there was consistency.

Mr I Rudd asked if the BCPP company was set up for pensions for all the local authorities in the northeast.

P Darby replied that the pension arrangements for local authorities in the northeast formed part of the BCPP arrangements and had been pooled to achieve economies of scale. There were 12 other pension funds across the country who had pooled their assets within BCPP.  Pooled funded only required one set of advisors and achieved savings as a result.  It was the Pension Committee that dictated how the assets of the Durham Fund were deployed and an evaluation report was provided with the pension account and how this factored into the statement of accounts.

P Darby expressed thanks on behalf of the Committee and Durham County Council for all the work that C Waddell and his team had carried out to get the Audits completed. 

Resolved:

That the report be noted.