On the go: The East Lothian Council has voted down a motion that sought to expand oversight of a planned merger between the £8.6bn Lothian Pension Fund and the £3.2bn Falkirk Council Pension Fund.
Debated on August 23, the motion — tabled by Scottish Greens councillor Shona McIntosh — which was not expressly against the merger taking place, was defeated by 10 votes to nine.
McIntosh was concerned that if the merger were to proceed, both funds’ committees would lose oversight over the new fund and be replaced by a new body. In the motion, McIntosh expressed her concern that this body would not have the same level of elected member, trade union and employer representation.
Had it been passed, the motion would have instructed the leader of the council to write to the Lothian Pension Fund and to the leaders of the Edinburgh and Falkirk councils, expressing worries “at the possibility of any loss of democratic oversight over the Local Government Pension Fund for our area, if elected members were to be omitted from the new board”.
It would also have appealed to the council and fund leaders to “strengthen democratic oversight, by ensuring that any new board has broad representation from trade unions and employers, and also contains elected members drawn proportionately from all participating local authorities areas”.
“The fact that we don’t have that at the moment is a democratic deficit, not just for us as councillors but for our constituents too,” McIntosh told the council on August 23.
East Lothian Council leader Norman Hampshire told the meeting in response that “councillor McIntosh has got the situation wrong here”.
“Anybody that’s represented on the pension board is on the pension board representing the 79,000 members of the pension fund,” he observed, adding that this figure will increase greatly following the merger.
“They’re not there as an elected representative. They’re there purely to take decisions [in] the best interests of their pension members,” he continued.
Hampshire said City of Edinburgh councillors had told him that they were looking to maintain the manner in which the fund is run, which currently has five trade union representatives and five employer representatives. This may increase if Falkirk joins, he said.
“Anybody that’s on there is there representing the pension holders. Not the council, not constituents in your community, they’re there representing the pension members,” he added.
“This motion is not relevant because it does not meet what the pension fund is about, and I cannot support it.”
