I am rich enough to share an article by Toby Nangle in today’s digital FT.

The big idea is saved to the end but you get the gist throughout, Reform matters in local Government and local government pensions are important to asset managers and to the net-zero industry who deliver in many regions’ pension strategies (Staffordshire is an example taken).

Toby completes with this statement

It seems likely that Reform UK’s success in May’s local government elections will result in changes to investment mandates for UK asset managers and pooling companies. The longer-term impact is contingent on how the forthcoming pensions bill is shaped. But regardless, it has the potential to create a real chilling effect across the UK asset management industry’s approach to net zero. This is going to be a big deal.

There’s a lot of analysis not just of LGPS but of other public sector pensions , including the MP’s pension and the conclusion is that they are to use the liberal word “progressive” over attitude to investing to minimise curtail change. The Reform word is “woke”

We are only a month from the PLSA LGPS Conference and it will be interesting to see if this makes it onto the agenda or even into the questions asked by newly appointed politicians with Reform badges and views. The Pension Committee is key to investment as Nangle explains.

We can see why a local authority pensions committee might sound like an absolute snorefest, but it’s actually a huge deal. Some of these committees might just rubber stamp what their pension officers tell them. But their actual powers are significant. It’s the pensions committee that approves each fund’s Investment Strategy Statement and sets strategic asset allocations. It’s the pensions committee that monitors the performance of the pooling companies and determines funding strategies. And it’s the pensions committee that hires and fires investment managers, custodians and advisers. Basically, this is the committee that holds the keys to a local government’s pension assets.

The snorefest of debates over ESG and particularly Net Zero may find themselves woken up if

Here is Nangle’s response received  from Reform

We got in touch with Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, to find out. He pointed us to his campaign against “woke net-zero-obsessed investments” that he thinks have underperformed in the parliamentary pension fund — the £862mn scheme for MPs that is sitting on a healthy surplus. This campaign, he suggested, is a model for the party’s approach to funded pension assets.

“The MP’s pension fund is riddled with net zero investments that are underperforming and has 32 per cent of its assets invested in illiquids that are probably overvalued,” Tice told FTAV. “This net zero obsession leaves the taxpayer on the hook for tens of millions of pounds.”

Now there may be differences in the implementation of net zero strategies from one scheme to another but the principal that going for net zero is going to have a cost is generally accepted.

Here we have a simple question, is it worth paying to sort out the climate’s problem or not. The LGPS has the capacity to do much to improve life in Britain within the budget of its funding requirements. It can also invest in better society for the local people who are not just members but in part the sponsors of LGPS through council tax. If these people are showing disquiet with woke investments then Reform will reflect that through Pension Committees or so Nangle Suspects.

I am now down to go to this LGPS PLSA conference and will look out for a view from Reform permeating in the very liberal atmosphere I have detected so far.