Editor's blog: Another month, another delay from the pensions ombudsman on releasing decisions on its pile of pensions liberation cases – decisions that could help scheme representatives facing extremely difficult choices on suspect pensions transfers.

Last week, as our sister title FTAdviser.com reported, the ombudsman announced pensions liberation complaints would not be published until the autumn: 

Source: FTAdviser.com

At the end of last month the organisation told Pensions Expert the decisions would be announced in the following few weeks – this after a previous July deadline had fallen by the wayside.

"The hope is that once we’ve published some decisions it will become clearer for trustees and pension providers generally what their obligations are, when they are put in the difficult position of having to decide whether to allow a member to transfer or not,” said ombudsman Tony King at the time.

Which is correct, and exactly why the consistent delays are so frustrating for scheme representatives, who are under a legal obligation to pay transfers, but terrified of signing off on something that could materially damage their scheme members' retirement prospects. 

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Editor's comment: The answer may not be as simple as higher rates mean better times for UK schemes. But it cannot be much worse than the pain of the past few years.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is among those who identified lower real interest rates as the reason behind a slip in its funding level. Such a story will be familiar to many.

So managers could be forgiven for hoping that the split decision of the Bank of England monetary policy committee was, as the Financial Times branded it today, an end to the low-rate era.

Front page of the Financial Times UK for Thursday, August 21 pic.twitter.com/iptfqJOuPy

— Financial Times (@FT) August 20, 2014

But not everyone in the industry is convinced rate increases will necessarily have a positive impact. We have blogged on the appetite for floating rate assets as schemes look to protect their fixed income allocations.

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Any other business: The western world is divided on the power of regulation to move it forward. For UK pension schemes, early, frank engagement with the Pensions Regulator is seen as key to a smooth ride.

Advocates of public sector pension reform have warned that regional initiatives could 'water down' savings for local authority funds from planned changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme.

Editor's blog: An eagle-eyed colleague over at our sister title MandateWire spotted London Councils' tender, issued this morning, for a common investment vehicle to be used across its 33 members.

This follows the creation of a limited-liability company, revealed in a press release on Monday, to house the vehicle. "We see no reason to divide the model by asset class," its chair and mayor of Hackney Jules Pipe said on Monday: thus the single CIV.

The body hopes to award the mandate by the fourth quarter, and for it to be operational by the second quarter next year, with an initial market value of £5bn.

It expects these fund administration and depositary fees to be fractional, at between £50,000 to £500,000 over the course of the contract, set at five years, with the option to extend for a further five.

Drawing upon research from consultancy Hymans Robertson, the government announced in May that it was also exploring compelling schemes to use CIVs to reduce the costs of local authority pension fund investment.

Source: Department for Communities and Local Government

Though rightly reported as a major shake-up, and a potential blow for the fund management industry, the move picked up on the collaboration already implemented by many funds through the increased use of shared investment strategies.

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Investment experts have reported that the secondary market for fiduciary management is warming up, as early adopters begin to review the performance of their managers.