Scheme documents

Chair's Annual Statement 2024

This is the Chair of the Trustee Board’s annual governance statement for members, which includes the following key information:

Review of the funds in which your money is invested

• A description of any review of the funds in the last scheme year and any resulting changes.
• If there was no review in the year, the statement indicates the date of the last review.

Pension account charges and transaction costs

• The level(s) of charges and transaction costs paid by members for all the funds that members are able to select.
• A statement on any unavailable transaction costs and steps being taken to obtain that information in future.
• An illustration of the compounding effect of costs and charges on the value of benefits.

Value for members

• The explanation of the Trustees’ assessment of why the scheme represents good value for members.

Statement of Investment Principles 2024

The Trustees’ investment objectives and the principles that the Trustees apply when making decisions about investments.

This is the most recent Statement of Investment Principles (SIP) for the Lifestyling Funds, which make up the default arrangement for members to invest in.

The Implementation Statement below sets out how the principles in the SIP were followed and how the SIP has been kept under review during the year by the Trustees.

Annual review of the SIP

As referred to in the Implementation Statement above, the principles in the SIP were reviewed by the Trustees in 2024 as part of the Trustees' annual review of the DC Section investment strategy and performance against the Trustees’ investment targets.

No changes were made to the underlying principles in the SIP as a result of the review.

Investment Newsletter 2022

The newsletter is relevant only to the DC Section of the Scheme. In March 2024, the DC section of the Scheme was transferred to the Aviva Master Trust – find out more on our overview page.

The review of the Statement of Investment Principles in 2022 identified that changes to the underlying allocation of assets that make up Mixed Investment Funds A, B and C were necessary.

Your Trustees also decided to better reflect the likely impact of environmental, social and governance issues (ESG) within the assets that make up the Mixed Investment Funds A, B and C.

The February 2022 newsletter shows these changes in detail, including the revised allocations.

Subsequent to the publication of this newsletter and following advice from the Trustees' investment consultants at the 2022 review, the Trustees concluded that volatility in the markets made it more difficult to predict outcomes in the following 12 months from asset allocation changes.

The Trustees reviewed the position again at the end of September 2022 and concluded that no changes be made to the investment strategy.

Annual Report and Accounts 2024

The comprehensive report on the Scheme's activities and financial performance throughout the year.

It includes the Chairs Annual Statement and the Statement of Investment Principles (although the versions of these documents above may actually be newer.)