FOR the second year running, our local government pension fund has been criticised in a national report from the Centre for Policy Studies, for management and overhead costs.
Cheshire Pension Fund represents our councils, housing associations, some schools and colleges, and a few other public bodies.
It covers 86,000 members in 220 employers.
The fund is one of the largest in England valued at £4.4 billion.
The report shows a national overreliance on external ‘experts’, and highlights how they have failed to outguess the stock markets, known as ‘active investing’.
Nationally pensions funds paid expert advisers £8 billion in fees in the past 10 years, but it would have been better if the 89 funds had just followed standard indexes, known as ‘passive investing’.
The report says that pension trustees are in awe of the highly paid advisers, consultants, and so-called experts.
Here in Cheshire only some investments can be seen on the website. All other investments by advisers on behalf of Cheshire Pension Fund are not openly available, they have been classed as commercially confidential.
We think that our fund should invest locally in the Northwich area for our local economy. For example the Annual Report lists office and retail blocks all over the UK, but not Cheshire, Warrington or Halton.
Why is that sensible? Does the south east really need our pension funds?What about some confidence in the Northern Powerhouse?
Dave Plunkett Chester
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