Potential change to BCF Investments – have your say.
During the last few months, the Trustees have been working with the Scheme’s investment advisors to look at some further investment options that could improve the returns on member funds.
This has involved looking at a way to gain exposure to the stock markets that doesn’t involve any unsuitable involvements and is in accord with Brethren investment beliefs.
Although these sorts of investments can grow more quickly than bank deposits, they can also fall in value. As a community we are used to bank deposits where the growth may be small, but is at least steady and the value of your investment doesn’t go down – the BCF Trustees are interested to know what our members think.
Would you be comfortable with taking additional risk in order to target higher returns, or are you more interested in avoiding the risk that your pension value could fall? To be clear, only a fairly small proportion of the funds would be invested in this way, and this would reduce the potential ups and downs as these would be balanced out by the more stable part of the portfolio.
Have your say by participating in our survey
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BCFPT2024
A personnel change
We wrote in the last newsletter to tell you about the appointment of Andrew Warwick-Thompson to assist with improving the governance of the Scheme.
Things got off to a great start, with the team quickly developing an excellent working relationship with Andrew, leading to a number of improvements to policies and processes. We are therefore sad to report that, due to serious ill-health, Andrew has had to resign his position at BCF and has handed us over into the capable hands of his colleague Andy Cheseldine.
Andy has over 30 years’ experience in both DC and DB pension consulting and liaising with regulators throughout the pensions and financial industry and is able to use his wide knowledge and understanding for the benefit of the BCF Trustee board.
Andy has a long and successful record of advising on regulatory, governance, change management, investment (particularly asset security), provider selection and communication issues. His work within industry committees and working groups has also given him experience of bringing together board members with disparate viewpoints and priorities.
The Trustees are confident that, with Andy’s assistance, BCF can carry on the great work started
with Andrew’s assistance.
Change of government – changes to pensions?
As our members will know there has been a change of government since we last wrote to you, and this probably leads to the question ‘what will change about pensions?’
While it is still early days, it seems that many of the initiatives begun by the previous government will be continued by Labour.
One of the first things the new Pensions Minister, Emma Reynolds, has done is to announce a Comprehensive Pensions review. This seeks to build on previous work around more pension investment into productive assets, with a focus on UK investments like infrastructure and high-growth private companies. The government is also focusing on economies of scale by looking at further pension scheme consolidation, and how to deal with lost pots, and members with multiple small pots. Value for Money is also a big topic, with the suggestion that poorly performing schemes could be forced to transfer their members into better performing schemes.
The BCF Trustees are keeping a close eye on all these initiatives as many could potentially have a significant impact on BCF, and its ability to continue to provide suitable pensions for the community. We will participate in government consultations and, where needed, make representation to the government and policymakers. But probably the big question on most members’ minds is “What will happen to pensions taxation?” The simple answer is we don’t know – whilst there have been many suggestions floated about changes to the tax reliefs available, the tax-free lump sum on retirement, and the tax treatment when a member dies, these are nothing new and have been cropping up for a number of years now without there being any changes.
The government has actively denied certain changes, but having said that they have also said they need to raise more tax – guess we won’t really know until after the October Budget.
Nothing in this article should be treated as any sort of financial advice, or any suggestion of any particular action – we suggest you approach a trusted financial advisor if you wish to discuss your options, and what could work best for you.
For now, it’s business as usual in pensions – change, change and more change!
Some things stay the same…
As ever the team at BCF are here to assist – Gwawr, Nuku and Mel at the Liverpool admin office, and Bruce and Jaime at the Ellesmere Port head office are more than happy to help with any queries you may have – just use the contact details at the bottom of this page to get in touch.
Have your say
What do you think about BCF?
How can we improve what we do?
We are looking for answers to these, and other questions, to help us understand what our members are looking for from BCF, and help us plan where next for the scheme.
Is it more updates you’re after, or maybe online member access and retirement planning tools…?
Please go to www.bcfpensiontrust.org/Feedback and let us know what you think.
