I was, what I rarely am,” knackered ” last night. So I switched on Nico and Darren’s chat box podcast expecting to hear an outside voice but heard instead a rehearse of the previous conversation about the VFM consultation. The feedback from me was good last week and it’s good this week though I’m not sure that anybody (including the Pensions Minister) has got much energy left for performance measurement when there is so much left to do on the Pensions Bill. It now appears likely that we will not get an Act till the summer due to the protracted discussions in the Lords and amendments will be made that I wish we could focus on.
Anyway, enough of me complaining that there is no outside voice. It is comforting to hear that Darren’s Company is doing its bit for his local team in Tonbridge. If Nico wants to return to the part of Somerset he went to school in, he can watch a Yeovil home game and find out what life is like outside the premiership. If he wants to know who is the most expensive team to watch in Britain, he can read this article
Darren and Nico should get down with LCP and study where there’s VFM in premier league prices!
But back to the podcast. Much of it is devoted to the Reform UK proposals to close LGPS as a DB scheme for new joiners and manage the £500bn (it is nearly that not £300bn) as a single pool of money.
Of course in doing that the LGPS could spend a lot less money than it does but it is already going some of the way by kicking out the investment advisers as part of its shift from 8 to 6 pools.
While the trend of the podcast is down, the 69 minutes spent this week is still 9 minutes longer than promised. Using as a benchmark, the average of February , this was short, but against an absolute target of an hour, it missed again!
This episode saw however a split between Nico and Darren over CDC. Nico remains a DC hardliner, Darren is showing signs of cracking in the face of obvious advantages of getting more pensions for contributions (VFM). I suspect that there are matters at play here that I have no knowledge of.
For reasons of the playful banter between the boys, this episode was worth listening to, it allowed me to disregard a headache that I get from the quantity of work that there is in getting organised to get a CDC proposal to TPR in just five months! The banter is often thought provoking , if only infuriating! But let that be, it gives me an inside view into the industry, which I will have to encounter in just 10 days time in Edinburgh!
At the end of the week beginning 9th March I now have several meeting stacked up on the Friday and then it will be time to hear what Darren and Nico made of the Pensions UK investment conference. I will do , as I usually do , slumped in front of my premier league football game on Saturday night!
Is SKY VFM – I doubt that compared with a Tonbridge Angels or Yeovil Town live match it is , but compared with London clubs prices, I suspect it is the only way forward!
