Correspondence with investment consultants & information on managing pension fund climate risk

Dear Cumbria County Council,

Please provide the following information in relation to Cumbria management of pension fund climate risk, & information & advice on same provided by external investment consultants including (but not limited to) Aon, Mercer,  Allenbridge Epic and Hymans Robertson.

1) Please provide emails & correspondence between council employees  (Cumbria finance function + responsible investment & pension fund mgmt), procurement, elected members (on pension fund committee), scheme members & external investment consultants on climate risk between 2018 and 2023

2) Please confirm if specific advice or information on climate risk has been sought by Cumbria and received from Mercer, or other investment consultants? - If so please provide copies of this information. (key search terms include "climate risk", "physical risk", "asset allocation" and "fossil fuels")

3) Please provide the following data points in MS Excel format in relation to each external climate risk analyses undertaken on the councils investment portfolio, noting the date/ year + provider of each analysis:

i) Warming scenarios applied, i.e 2degC, 3degC, 4,degC, 5degC, 6degC & year in which it is suggested each warming threshold considered by the scenarios will be reached?

ii) Projected gains or losses for the portfolio &/or GDP activity for each scenario/year assessed

iii) Specifics of any change(s) to asset portfolio allocation recommended by the consultants to reduce the risk of future financial losses and/or to reduce financed emissions across the portfolio.

Yours faithfully,

Joel M Benjamin

Dear Cumbria County Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Cumbria County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Correspondence with investment consultants & information on managing pension fund climate risk'.

You have calculated that gathering this information will exceed the cost limit, but I believe that this is a gross overestimation of the resource required, given I am primarily interested in emails from & between the councils advisory consultants - Mercer, & key financial & pension fund staff, as well as the chair of the pension committee.

In refusing this request, council states: "this request would incur more than reasonable cost to create (which for local authorities is £450).

In its refusal notice, council has not confirmed what the relevant search terms are for the purpose of narrowing the request? and whether or not these terms are consistent with the specific key word search terms & named consultancies as set out in my FOI request?

In the absence of specific guidance from council, to narrow the scope of the request so as to fit within cost limits, I suggest the following:

1) reduce the search terms to "climate risk" and "climate scenario analysis" only

2) Reduce the number of email inboxes to be searched to the following, (in order of preference, should you have to exclude any based on time):

- Head/ Director of Finance
- Head/ Director of the Pension Fund
- Chair of Pensions Fund Committee
- Head of Procurement
- Wider Pension Fund Committee

3) Reduce the applicable search period to 2020-2023 only.

Regarding Questions 3) i), i ) or i i) of my request - you appear to confirm you hold the information, yet have not outlined valid reasons under FOIA for not disclosing it?

It is likely you would cite "commercial sensitivity" concerns on the part of consultants providing the council with information & advice - you may be aware, ICO guidance states that when applying a commercial sensitivity exemption, an authority "must show that because [the information] is commercially sensitive, disclosure would be, or would be likely to be, prejudicial to the commercial activities of a person (an individual, a company, the public authority itself or any other legal entity)" - prejudice vs contracts is not specifically referenced.

In DoH vs Information Commissioner (EA/2008/0018) - it was held that while some contractual information may be exempted from disclosure, this should not result in the blanket exemption of whole contracts or documents, and any decision to redact or disclose should be taken on a clause by clause, point by point basis.

Please note I have zero interest in obtaining commercial fee or price structure information relating to information, contracted services, or advice the council has sought and received from external third parties - the request is targeted at the communications of senior council staff, with no realistic expectation of privacy when conducting public affairs - in order to better understand how public money is being invested and spent - and how councils responsibilities to manage climate risks, protect the environment, and contribute towards achieving the UK's wider net zero goal are being shaped by external investment consultants.

Procurement framework guidance provided by Cumbria to the consultant(s) at bidding stage makes clear that any communications or information provided to the council will be subject to FOIA. Additionally, any climate risk assessment advice or modelling undertaken by the consultant(s) is only made possible with information and investment assumptions provided by council to the consultant(s), therefore any attempt to hide behind commercial sensitivity claims could be viewed as a convenient vehicle by which Cumbria could shield the various assumptions it makes about the future impacts of climate change on future fund returns from effective public & LGPS member scrutiny.

Some examples of climate scenario analysis at other councils show implausibly low future impacts for 4 degrees warming, in a scenario described by climate scientists as "hellish" where society as we know it would cease to function, yet the pension fund assets are only shown to suffer annual losses in the order of ~1%?!

Release of climate risk information would likely benefit both LGPS scheme members, and local taxpayers, by providing scope for wider scrutiny, & reassurance for members that the scheme is actively managing climate risks in line with its fiduciary duty, whilst attempting to lower the funds climate impact.

The information requested pertains to climate risk assessments relating to significant public expenditure - namely, consultancy expenditure and the pension scheme investments of public sector workers - underwritten by the taxpayer, and how those schemes are managed in a way which provides for both a stable income in retirement for members, and either contributes towards achieving a liveable climate for scheme members and wider society, or as is presently the case - further contributes to the ongoing growth in global emissions - driving climate breakdown.

As such, given both the substantial sums of public money being managed, and the schemes investments in large financial, transportation, industrial, agricultural and fossil fuel sector companies driving climate change - there is a legitimate public interest in understanding upon what information and advice scheme funds are being invested, and that such information and climate risk advice, in the absence of any regulatory oversight, is consistent with the latest climate science on expected future global warming, and its likely effects on both the environment, and future pension scheme returns

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Joel M Benjamin