Agenda item

To put questions, if any, to the designated Members on the discharge of functions of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and South Yorkshire Pensions Authority, in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11(5).

There were two questions:

1.    Councillor Yasseen: The South Yorkshire Pension Fund states that it has an ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) policy. Can the Council’s Pension Representative clarify what this policy means in practice and whether they have ever raised or spoken on any ESG related issues at the Fund?

Councillor Sutton, the Council’s Representative on South Yorkshire Pension’s Authority, stated that the Pensions Authority maintained a responsible investment policy detailing its approach to its ESG responsibilities and provided quarterly updates on activity in this area which were available on the Authority’s website. Councillor Sutton confirmed that following the concerns raised she had communicated these to the Authority.

The Authority regularly engaged with Border to Coast as its fund manager where it saw issues in relation to specific investments and had done so over particular investments made by PIMCO, a manager within the Multi Asset Credit Fund. The Authority and Border to Coast had been disappointed by the lack of detailed insight and transparency provided by PIMCO and continued to follow this up and seek clear answers to the questions raised.

The Authority was, however, limited as to what it could do given the fiduciary duty placed on it, which was as set out by the Supreme Court, and meant it had to place primacy on delivering in the financial interests of scheme members. Further, in line with Government policy, investments were held in pooled funds meaning that SYPA could not act on issues in isolation from its pooling partners.

In her supplementary, Councillor Yasseen asked if anybody, Councillor Sutton or any other local authority representative on the pension fund, had raised concerns about the investment into Israeli arms and bombs.

Councillor Sutton confirmed that these questions had been raised at authority level and were still in discussion.

2.    At the last meeting, the Pension Representative didn’t understand my question (I was speaking English) and avoided it. The SYPA of which Rotherham Council is a member has invested nearly £2 million in Israeli bonds and £117million in arms firms. With over-whelming evidence of Israeli war crimes and genocide, what have you done to challenge this under the ESG policy?

Councillor Sutton, the Council’s Representative on South Yorkshire Pension’s Authority, stated that, as indicated in answer to the previous question and questions raised at previous meetings, she continued to raise Cllr Yasseen’s concerns and those of other members.

While the Pensions Authority had and continued to raise questions about investments which were made by an external investment manager within the terms of their mandate, the Authority could not act in isolation to sell any specific stocks. In relation to investment in arms companies, these companies were acting under the terms of licences from the relevant government and even if the Pensions Authority could act in isolation to sell such investments, it would be legally unreasonable to do so given the companies were acting within the specific sanction of the relevant government.  

In her supplementary, Councillor Yasseen asked Councillor Sutton if the Pension’s Authority would have taken a different view if the arms investments had been Russian and were being used to attack the innocent people in Ukraine.

Councillor Sutton stated that she could not respond to hypothetical questions and certainly not without speaking to the Authority first.