Northants’ Reform UK councils told to urgently change staff pensions scheme
Reform UK's deputy leader has claimed today that tax payers are being 'ripped off' and his party can do it better
By Sarah Ward
Northamptonshire’s two Reform UK led unitary councils have been told to change course on their staff pensions scheme as the party looks to appoint its own pool scheme.
At a press conference in London today (September 1) the Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice claimed that within the 13 councils taken over by the authority since May, the party had identified that significant savings could be made by reducing the fees paid to fund managers.
He claimed the councils were paying too much in fees to financiers who were not performing and that within the 13 Reform UK councils they had estimated that £265m could be saved.
He told the audience of gathered national media that local taxpayers were being ripped off and that local government pension schemes were a national issue that no-one was talking about.
He said:
“What we are seeing in the local government pension schemes is a gravy train culture of overcharging with no responsibility. Of under performance with accountability whatsoever and it is the council tax payer who is being ripped off.”
Local council pensions are part of a pooled scheme and join with other councils for pension management, which is led by a pool manager.
Tice, who grew up in Northants and whose family ran a wealthy property investment company, said all councils had been told to take urgent action.
“We are going to urge all our council pension committees to urgently change course. This cannot go on. This simply is acceptable. The numbers are enormous.”
He continued:
“Any council committee that says ‘No we are not going to do this and we are going to stay with the status quo’. Mark my words, you are on the side of the rich, city investment managers.
“We need to look at a new Reform pool manager - because bluntly we think we can do this better.”
He said the councils should discount the advice given by the pension advisers they currently use because they had done a ‘shocking job’. He said if councils did not change course the party would be ‘pretty grumpy’.
He told the press conference there would be no change to the pension benefit schemes for local government workers, as this was regulated by law.
Leader of West Northants Council Mark Arnull was on the stage with Tice along with other leaders, although North Northants leader Cllr Martin Griffiths did not appear to be there. The media gathered were given the Reform’s analysed date for each council.
NN Journal has requested the details and will when we receive them. We have tried to call both leaders this afternoon for comment.
The demands of the national party to the local leaders come after a series of top down policy changes.
In Northants the two councils have changed their flag raising policies, the West has scrapped its net zero commitments and the North is in the process. Both will also be visited by the Reform UK’s controversial US-style Department of Government Efficiency. Since Reform has come in, the West’s chief executive Anna Earnshaw has announced her departure and will leave in November. Finance boss Martin Henrys will step in as interim chief executive.
Leader of the West Northants Liberal Democrat group Cllr Jonathan Harris has questioned whether the pensions changes can go ahead on the orders of the national political party.
He said:
“I would have thought there is a whole load of processes that they will have to go through to extricate themselves from the pot.”
He said who takes over the management should be subject to the same procurement arrangements as all other services. Today UK penions experts have voiced concerns about the plans. Read more here.
Cllr Keith Holland-Delamere, Labour councillor and a member of West Northants pension committee, said:
“The local government pension scheme provides financial security in retirement for many thousands of people in Northants who are employed by or have retired from local authorities, contractors, charities and other organisations. Their financial security should not be put at risk by party political posturing by Reform.
“Trustees and pension committee members are under a legal duty to make their decisions in the best interests of pension scheme members. These may not be the same as the interests of the local authority – the pension scheme is there for the pensioners. It is completely wrong for Reform to threaten or bully pension fund trustees and committee members.
“Richard Tice says those who don’t do what he says are on the side of “rich, city investment managers.” Yet Tice, Farage and Yusuf, the big three in Reform, are all multi-millionaires with backgrounds in big city finance.
“Reform in West Northants must be accountable to the people of West Northants, not to Reform's big city bosses.”
This afternoon West Northants Council has confirmed it is taking the first steps to try and remove asylum seekers from three hotels in Northants. The authority says it is in the process of serving planning notices to the hotel owners, as it believes housing the refugees is a contravention of the planning permission. The hotel will have 21 days to respond.
The issue of the asylum hotels will be discussed at a special meeting of the council on September 16.
Last week the court of appeal overturned a ruling to remove asylum seekers from a hotel in Epping Forest.
This article was first published to paying subscribers on September 1.
Dunning-Kruger all the way down. Fund management, especially when involving defined-benefit schemes, is a skilled job. These buffoons are incapable of rational thinking.
"a new Reform pool manager" would literally be "jobs for the boys"! On the plus side, it's an opportunity for the council's pension funds to finally disinvest from fossil fuels. Reform would do that, right?