Correspondence between IPSA and the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

Request

  • All correspondence between the IPSA, and the Secretariat and/or Trustees of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund since January 2012.

  • All documents held by the IPSA relating to the development and/or review of the Statement of Investment Principles of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund.


Response

IPSA holds some of the information that you have requested.

Background

Responsibility for oversight of MPs’ pensions and certain Ministers/Office Holders was transferred to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) on 24 October 2011. Following public consultation, a new pension scheme, the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF), came into force in 2015.

On a day to day basis, the PCPF pension scheme is administered by the House of Commons Pensions Unit.

Your request for information

Information not held by IPSA

The Trustees of the PCPF are responsible for all aspects of running the PCPF and looking after the best interests of both the Scheme and its members. One of the Trustees is nominated by IPSA. That position is currently occupied by IPSA’s Director of Regulation, John Sills.

Information held by Mr Sills in his capacity as a trustee of the PCPF is held by him on behalf of the PCPF. As such, this information is not held by IPSA. For more information, you can find guidance on this issue from the Information Commissioner's Officer (ICO) via this link

Information held by IPSA

Information already publicly available

All responses to public consultations are published on our website once the consultation has ended. Copies of responses made by the PCPF to consultations held by IPSA can be found on our website and are not included as part of this response.

Information being disclosed

The remaining correspondence that we hold falls into two categories:

  • Correspondence of a routine nature, exchanged between IPSA’s payroll team and the staff at the PCPF relating to the administration of the MPs’ Pension Scheme, and

  • Correspondence exchanged between senior officials at IPSA and the PCPF.

You clarified in your email of 3 March 2017 that you were seeking the latter: correspondence exchanged between senior officials.

In processing your request, we considered the application of the exemption at section 36 of the FOIA. This exemption relates to information which, if disclosed, would ‘prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs’. Consideration of this exemption is made by a ‘qualified person’. IPSA’s ‘qualified person’ is Sir Robert Owen, a member of IPSA’s Board and a former High Court judge.

Sir Robert considered the arguments for and against disclosure, and whether or not the public interest outweighed the application of the exemption. He has concluded that the exemption does not apply in this instance, and that the information requested should be disclosed.

As such, please find below the information requested.












You can find out more information about MPs' pay and pensions on our website here.

Ref:
CAS-71789
Disclosure:
4 April 2017
Categories:
CORRESPONDENCEMPs' PAY AND PENSIONS
Exemptions Applied:
None