Apologies and welcomes
The Chair welcomed everybody to the meeting, including the Chief Technology Officer of the Pension Protection Fund. Attendees and apologies were as noted.
Declarations of conflicts of interest
No declarations had been received in advance or were made at the meeting.
The Chair’s update
The Chair updated the Board on progress with the NED recruitment with interviews completed. The panel would submit a report of appointable candidates to No.10 and thence to the Ministerial team at DWP for decision; it was hoped that appointees could be ready to start in May.
Contract extensions to 31 May 2022 for two NEDs (Robert Herga and Kirstin Baker) had been formally agreed. An extension to Chris Morson’s appointment as chair of the Audit & Risk Committee (ARAC) had been applied for.
It was noted that an update on TPR’s net zero carbon emissions 2030 commitment had been sent to the Board for information.
The Chair was leading a project with the Public Chairs’ Forum to improve ALB board member recruitment processes.
CEO report
The Board received an update on TPR’s accommodation strategy, and on the phased transition to hybrid working.
Norton - It was noted that Mr. Garner had pleaded guilty to Employer Related Investment offences and had been remanded on bail for sentencing.
Risk appetite – various topics were discussed with progress and actions noted.
Pensions Schemes Act (PSA) Full Business Case (FBC)
Since the Board’s previous consideration of the OBC in September 2021, each project within this programme had been assessed or reassessed to restate the delivery and BAU/operational costs, and the programme benefits from the perspective of savers had also been reassessed and restated. The exception was the Defined Benefit (DB) funding code project, as there was a delay to this the team would return to Board in May with details of BAU/operational costs and full benefit profiles for the DB Funding Code project. After discussion, the Board approved the FBC for the PSA programme and the funds for the remainder of the PSA programme, excluding DB funding code BAU/operational costs.
Key policy updates
The Chair introduced this new item; a high-level overview of policy workstreams and top line deliverables that was intended to give the Board visibility of what was on the Policy team’s agenda from time to time.
Regulatory deep dive – supervision events
The Board discussed and fed back on a paper examining our approach to Events Supervision and the objectives and outcomes we are trying to achieve.