Bromley Pension Fund Investments

Dear Bromley Borough Council,

I am researching the fossil fuel investments made by UK Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) for an upcoming report by UK Divest. On publication, the report is likely to receive substantial interest from press and the elected representatives sitting on pension fund committees across the UK. Therefore can you please ensure the investment data you provide is as accurate as possible as our analysis will be fundamentally informed by it.

To complete this research, I require data on each investment that was held by London Borough of Bromley Pension Fund on 31 March 2022, or the nearest possible date:

1. Investment names. Please provide the names of all investments held by the pension fund. For direct investments, please provide the names of individual investments such as specific stocks, bonds, and real estate units. For indirect investments (i.e. those held via a third party), please provide the names of investment vehicles, such as specific mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs) and anything else. Note we do not need to know what each indirect investment vehicle invests in as we will determine this in the data analysis.

2. Investment identifiers. For listed investments (i.e. those traded on public exchanges), such as bonds and equities, please provide the International Securities Identifier Number (ISIN). For any investments that do not have an ISIN number, such as some alternative assets, please provide the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). If an investment does not have an identifier, please provide an explanation.

3. Asset types. The asset type for each investment as reported by the pension fund, such as: real estate, cash, private equity, listed equity, sovereign bonds, corporate bonds etc.

4. Investment managers. The name of the entity which is responsible for the day-to-day management of each investment. For example, this could be the name of the entity which manages a specific investment fund such as Baillie Gifford, Legal & General, UBS etc. Note we do not need to know who is responsible for the overall governance of the LGPS or any pools it might belong to.

5. Investment values. The market value of each investment in pounds sterling (£) on 31 March 2022 or the nearest possible date. And please also give the total value of the pension fund.

We have created a read-only Google Sheet as a template for how we would like the data presented when you answer this request. You can view and download it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...

If possible, please use this Google Sheet when answering. Please note there are two tabs - 'summary' and 'data'. Please fill in both tabs. Using the template would help us accurately analyse the data provided.

If you respond promptly and to a satisfactory standard, we will willingly share our analysis with you prior to publication of our report, so you have the chance to comment and benchmark your pension fund against other UK LGPS.

I would like to receive this information in unlocked excel sheets without protected cells (.xls). If you have to password protect the excel sheets, please also provide the password to them. When considering the request for this data in excel format, please refer to Innes v Information Commissioner [2014] EWCA Civ 1086 (i), which allows a requester to express a preference for communication by a particular means, specifically: "an applicant's right to choose to have information provided to him in electronic form extends to a right to choose the software format in which it is embodied." (ii)

Please note:

Many public authorities release their contracts, minutes, and other information of interactions with private vendors in line with the Freedom of Information Act. The exemption for commercial interest under the Act (section 43) is a qualified exemption, which means information can only be withheld if it is in the public's interest. The public have an interest in knowing what the Pension Fund is investing in, the terms of contracts and the minutes of meeting with public authorities, whether or not public money changes hands immediately.

If you are relying on section 41 (the exemption for legal breach of confidence) then I would like to know the following:

* When these confidentiality agreements were agreed
* All correspondence and email in which these confidentiality agreements were discussed
* The precise wording of the confidentiality agreements.

I ask these questions because guidance issued by both the Lord Chancellor (draft guidance on FOI implementation) and the Office of Government Commerce (Model terms and conditions for goods and services) specifically state that public authorities should not enter into these types of agreements; they go directly against the spirit of the laws of disclosure. I would also point to the Information Commissioner's guidance on accepting blanket commercial confidentiality agreements: 'Unless confidentiality clauses are necessary or reasonable, there is a real risk that, in the event of a complaint, the Commissioner would order disclosure in any case.' (iii)

Finally, within the law of confidence there is also a public interest test. Therefore, the information should be disclosed in full. If any parts are redacted, they must be for information that can be proven to be a legal breach of confidence in court, and only then where secrecy can be shown to be in the public interest. These are difficult positions to argue when public money is at stake or where a public authority is offering a private company a monopoly to charge its stakeholders.

I reserve the right to appeal your decision to withhold any information or to charge excessive fees, and understand that under the act, I am entitled to a response within 20 working days. I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have received this request.

Yours faithfully,

Edward Jones

(i) Innes v Information Commissioner [2014] EWCA Civ 1086 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/...

(ii) Section 11 FOIA and the Form of a Request
https://panopticonblog.com/2014/08/01/se...

(iii) 'Freedom of Information Awareness Guidance 5: Commercial Interests' Office of the Information Commissioner, Page 10 https://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/pr...

Dear Bromley Borough Council,

Thank you for your acknowledgment. Unfortunately I am not able to open any of your message or enter the portals provided by you. Could you helpfully provide the answer in the excel format as an answer to this message.

Yours faithfully,
Edward Jones

Dear Freedom of Information Coordinator,

Thanks for your response on April 24.

While I thank you for the basic information/data provided via a link I would like to get the detailed information asked for.

I am hoping that this can be dealt with as a clarification, and not a internal review, to ensure a quicker response. Please let me know if an internal review is necessary.

Many public authorities release their contracts, minutes, and other information of interactions with private vendors in line with the Freedom of Information Act. The exemption for commercial interest under the Act (section 43) is a qualified exemption, which means information can only be withheld if it is in the public's interest. The public have an interest in knowing what the Pension Fund is investing in, the terms of contracts and the minutes of meeting with public authorities, whether or not public money changes hands immediately.

If you are relying on section 41 (the exemption for legal breach of confidence) then I would like to know the following:

* When these confidentiality agreements were agreed
* All correspondence and email in which these confidentiality agreements were discussed
* The precise wording of the confidentiality agreements.

I ask these questions because guidance issued by both the Lord Chancellor (draft guidance on FOI implementation) and the Office of Government Commerce (Model terms and conditions for goods and services) specifically state that public authorities should not enter into these types of agreements; they go directly against the spirit of the laws of disclosure. I would also point to the Information Commissioner's guidance on accepting blanket commercial confidentiality agreements: 'Unless confidentiality clauses are necessary or reasonable, there is a real risk that, in the event of a complaint, the Commissioner would order disclosure in any case.' (iii)

Finally, within the law of confidence there is also a public interest test. Therefore, the information should be disclosed in full. If any parts are redacted, they must be for information that can be proven to be a legal breach of confidence in court, and only then where secrecy can be shown to be in the public interest. These are difficult positions to argue when public money is at stake or where a public authority is offering a private company a monopoly to charge its stakeholders.

And in terms of Section 21 I do not believe reasonable access is granted through your website. To use information on your website necessitates conversion software (pdf to excel) and complete reformatting. It is not reasonable to expect us to go to this expense and labour when as a public body you could access this information at source and with relative ease convert and populate it to an excel/googlesheet document.

To give context we are engaged in a positive national project to promote renewable energy investment and divestment from fossil fuels (stranded assets).

As such we require accurate, detailed information in excel format. So far the vast majority of the UK's 100 LGPS's have provided this information using the template we sent them to make the task easier: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...

An example is Gwynedd Pension Fund https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g...). I can provide many more examples of other pension funds providing all of the requested data on request.

We are working on a positive project to promote renewable energy investment and divestment from the stranded assets of fossil fuels.

Our deadline is June 19 so we would be eternally grateful if you could get the data to us in the required format as soon as humanly possible.

Yours sincerely,

Edward Jones

Dear Freedom of Information coordinator Finance freedom of information (Group),

Please can you reply within the 20 working days you stated in your June 19 email.

This is a highly important Government lobbying project we are working on promoting divestment from coal, oil and gas and investment in renewables.

Yours sincerely,

Edward Jones

Dear Bromley Borough Council,

The link you provided did not work. I can not view it. It just says: "Oops! It looks like this URL is no longer active."

Please resend the data, but this time send it to whatdotheyknpow, so it is uploaded along all other correspondence on this here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/b...

Yours faithfully,

Edward Jones