I accidentally posted this link early this morning. The question was to me as I had no idea what the Birmingham Post was basing the view that employers were being screwed for money to pay pensions by the West Midlands Local Authority Pension Scheme.
Here is the article in question, being promoted by Mike Woodall, a man who has been very good to me over the years and Steve Simkins who is a trombonist and (like Mike) an expert on pension funding for the Local Government Pension Fund.
The reason I didn’t mean to publish was that I couldn’t work out whether the author of the paper could be believed. Neither did one reader who tried to find the source for the article.
I couldn’t find the source of the article nor could one of my readers who wrote
Without the Clancy report there is no way of settling anything –
The WMPF annual report and accounts states that employer contributions ranged from 0% – 44%…which is really helpful
It paid £104 million to investment managers which is about 0.5% of assets, which does not hit me as excessive – they have quite a bit of private investments
West Midlands Pension Fund has published an explanation of its situation. It is not apologetic, you can read it here.
The view of my confused reader is based on the lack of availability of information.
It is difficult anyway because the various member employers of west midlands (or any other) will have specific contribution rates demanded by the central fund. But overall WMPF reports a discount rate of 4.3% in its latest report and accounts – which makes the 2% reported in the article look very suspect.
So I can make no comment on the demands of West Midlands on employees or the impact these demands are having on the employers.
I wish I had never got caught up in this, it was only me pressing the “publish” document by myself.
I would very much like a position on the article published by the Birmingham Post or indeed the ITV.
This has the capacity to cause a lot of trouble for West Midlands Pension Fund but right now the source is simply not available. If anyone can share the Clancy Report, we will have something with more basis.
Apologies to those who read this earlier.