Governance

Flintshire County Council reviewed its Governance arrangements for the Clwyd Pension Fund in 2014. Prior to this date, the responsibility for the Clwyd Pension Fund rested with the Head of Finance who reported to the Clwyd Pension Fund Panel made up of elected members from Flintshire County Council, Denbighshire County Council and Wrexham County Borough Council. In addition the panel had non-voting members including an independent adviser and a scheme member representative.

An independent review by CIPFA in 2010 found the governance of the Fund to be very good but recognised that this governance structure did not meet best practice, in particular they recommended:

Responsibility for the management of the Clwyd Pension Fund should be transferred from the Head of Finance to a newly constituted Committee
There should be wider representation of stakeholders on the newly constituted committee with voting rights extended to all committee members.

As a result, in May 2014, the Fund's governance arrangements were reviewed and the Council established a formal Pension Fund Committee, supported by a Pensions Advisory Panel. The Corporate Finance Manager is the Section 151 Officer and has a statutory responsibility for the proper financial affairs of Flintshire County Council which include Clwyd Pension Fund matters.

In addition, the Council has delegated specific responsibilities to the Head of the Clwyd Pension Fund. This governance structure was expanded in early 2015 as a result of the requirement by the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 to introduce a local pension board to assist in compliance of pension fund matters. It was then further expanded in March 2017 to establish the Wales Pool Joint Governance Committee and Officer Working Group and facilitate the move to pooling of pension fund assets across the eight LGPS Pension Funds in Wales. The Council's governance structure for pension fund matters is as shown below: