Wiltshire Pension Fund – Interview


it can impact the strategy. We have a lot of money tied up in private markets.


There have been issues with some pension funds wanting to exit the pooling system. Do you understand why? I don’t know the details of it, but I believe they have not transitioned any assets into the pool. So maybe they were just looking at their options. But for us, we have more than 70% of the fund in the pool. There is absolutely no way we would con- sider anything like that. We are fully com- mitted to pooling. It’s certainly not some- thing on our radar, even remotely.


So you have no problem with the govern- ment setting a deadline for the total pool- ing of your assets? I guess they want to push some of the funds who haven’t pooled any of their assets. In a way, it feels like a level of instruction we don’t need. We are all get- ting on with it and trying to do what was intended. So maybe they should just leave us alone to carry on and do that in the best way for our funds rather than mandate deadlines.


What do you make of the government wanting pension funds to invest in line with their growth agenda, such as in infrastructure? This has raised its head again and again


over the years. They don’t want to tell us what to invest in, and they can’t unless they change the regulations. But we would be delighted to invest in UK infra- structure, but it has to give us the returns. That’s the point. They somehow have to facilitate decent return opportunities for us to do so. Otherwise, that’s going to compromise our investment strategies and end up being a bit of an own goal in the long run.


What do you see as being the biggest chal- lenges for your fund?


The climate stuff is only going to get big- ger and more intensive. Everybody is talking about biodiversity as well, yet I feel the industry is struggling to find its feet in terms of what that means from a practical perspective. That is going to be tough to get to grips with. There is a lot of stuff we are expecting to come out from government and it’s wait- ing to see what that is. Sitting around in the short term and not being able to make decisions or waiting for all these consulta- tions to land, but still trying to be pre- pared for them is quite challenging. I feel like we have tried our absolute best to get ahead on a lot of these things, especially the climate stuff, like we have been doing with Task Force on Climate-related Finan- cial Disclosures reporting. We are trying to get ahead of it.


JENNIFER DEVINE’S CV


2021-present Head of Wiltshire Pension Fund Wiltshire Pension Fund


2018-2021 Head of Pension Fund Investments Wiltshire Pension Fund


2009-2018 Responsible for alternative invest- ments within the investment portfolio Hampshire Pension Fund


2005-2009 Accountant Mazars


And what about your own biggest personal challenge?


I used to just work on the investments, but about 18 months ago I took over responsibility for the whole fund, includ- ing the administration. A lot of local gov- ernment pension schemes have adminis- tration issues.


We have a dual mandate of delivering returns and making positive social and environmental impacts.


It can be done well and it should be done well. We can see how to get there but it can be difficult sometimes to get the skills in that you need. There are obviously challenges in the public sector with recruitment and things like that. That is something the government has asked us to look at: coming up with work- force


strategies and things associated


with that. That’s been quite challenging. It was discussed at the recent LGPS con- ference. A lot of funds are experiencing issues with backlogs of work. That is my big focus. Getting us on top of that and operating efficiently on the admin side. Then with the investments, focusing on continuing to build on what we are already doing and advancing our responsible investment agenda.


Issue 125 | July-August 2023 | portfolio institutional | 15


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