Falkirk Council Pension Fund Investments

The request was partially successful.

Dear Falkirk Council,

I would like to request the following information:

1) The full details of what the Falkirk Council Pension Fund currently invests in, including the name and amounts of each asset class or investment being held.

2) The investments broken down into different categories/types of holding, including: Index Linked Securities, Unit trust Property, Cash Instruments, Unit Trust Equities, Infrastructure, Fixed Interest Securities, Equities Segregated Unlisted, Equities Segregated UK, Equities Segregated Foreign as well as any other investments that the Pension Fund holds.

3) The industrial sector of each investment e.g. Aerospace & Defense, Oil & Gas Producers, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology, Media, Banks, Mining, Government, Automobiles, Financial Services, Housing and any other sectors that the Pension Fund holds investments in. Examples of Pension Funds which have previously included this data in their publicly released investments include Buckinghamshire and Derbyshire. (i)

4) A full list of all the companies which the Pension Fund currently invests in (this should be covered in the above requests). This list should include the names of each company and the amount invested in each company.

5) Can you clearly specify the total value of all investments that the Pension Fund holds in sterling.

6) I would like to receive this information in an unlocked excel sheet without protected cells (.xls). If you have to password protect the excel sheet, can you also provide the password to the excel sheet. When considering the request for this data in excel format, please refer to Innes v Information Commissioner [2014] EWCA Civ 1086 (ii), which allows a requestor 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." (iii)

I would like to receive the information in electronic format. If one part of the request can be answered sooner than others, please send that information first followed by any subsequent data. If you need further clarification, please contact me by email.

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.' (iv)

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) Buckinghamshire https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2... Derbyshire https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2...

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

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

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

FOI, Falkirk Council

1 Attachment

Good afternoon,

 

Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

 

We acknowledge receipt of your information request dated 24 June 2020 .
The Reference Number for this is 102094.

 

In terms of the relevant legislation, we have 20 working days to deal with
your request from the date that we received it.  Where possible, we will
respond sooner.  However, as you might expect, Covid-19 is currently
impacting on our ability to respond to requests.  This may be because
staff are working from home and are therefore unable to carry out full
searches for information or because staff are working on delivering
essential front-line services.   The Scottish Information Commissioner
(who oversees compliance with FOI legislation in Scotland) has the ability
to recognise any unavoidable reasons for delay in considering any appeals
for non-compliance with statutory timescales.

 

Please therefore bear with us at this difficult time.  If you are able to
narrow the scope of your request, that would be very helpful and may mean
we can respond to you more quickly.  Alternatively, please consider
withdrawing your request and resubmitting it once normal service has
resumed.

 

If you would like to know how we treat your personal information, you can
read more on the Council’s privacy webpage -
[1]https://www.falkirk.gov.uk/privacy/.

 

On behalf of Falkirk Council

Lynn

Information Team

 

 

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investments, Falkirk Council

2 Attachments

Dear Edward Jones

 

Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

 

I refer to your e-mail dated 24 June 2020 and now provide information that
you have requested.

 

1)      The Fund routinely publishes its investments holdings on the
website. Please follow link below

 

[1]https://falkirkpensionfund.org/media/548...

 

2)      Please see link in point 1)

3)      Please see file attached

4)      Please see link in point 1)

5)      Total value of the Fund investments in GBP is £1.7bn as at
31/03/2020.

 

Please refer to the enclosed leaflet which explains your right to complain
about the handling of your case and/or the decision made.

 

Yours sincerely

 

On behalf of Falkirk Council Pension Fund

 

 

 

 

 

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Dear Falkirk Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Falkirk Council's handling of my FOI request 'Falkirk Council Pension Fund Investments'.

Firstly, the investment data was provided in pdf format. As I said in the original request:

"I would like to receive this information in an unlocked excel sheet without protected cells (.xls). If you have to password protect the excel sheet, can you also provide the password to the excel sheet. When considering the request for this data in excel format, please refer to Innes v Information Commissioner [2014] EWCA Civ 1086 (ii), which allows a requestor 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." (iii)"

Can you provide consider the above FOI rulings, and provide the data in excel format as originally requested? Almost all other UK local authority Pension Funds currently provide their investment data in excel format, so it makes sense for you to do the same. The data, if provided in excel, is much easier to work with. Also, if I have to convert it from pdf, there is much more likely for errors to appear. Please provide the data in excel format!

Also can you merge the two pdfs into one excel sheet. So all of the investment data as well as the sector breakdown is in one excel sheet.

Finally, can you include the cash investments in the revised spreadsheet, as it says they are currently excluded. Ideally this final revised spreadsheet would also give a grand total in it. All of this was originally requested in the original FOI request.

Yours faithfully,

Edward Jones

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

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

FOI, Falkirk Council

1 Attachment

Good morning

 

Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

S.21(5) Review Notice

 

We acknowledge receipt of your request for review. The Reference Number
for this is 102094.

 

We have 20 working days to deal with your request from the date that we
received it but we will respond earlier where possible.

 

On behalf of Falkirk Council

Maureen

Information Team

If you would like to know how we treat your personal information, you can
read more on the Council’s privacy webpage -
[1]https://www.falkirk.gov.uk/privacy/.

 

 

 

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Dear FOI,

When considering the internal review, can you take into account the following:

I have made similar requests in the past to Falkirk Council, after they initially sent me the information in .pdf format, and they then sent me the information in excel format. I hope you can do the same. Please see the exchange between myself and Falkirk Council here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

Yours sincerely,

Edward Jones

Alastair Mcgirr, Falkirk Council

Mr Jones

 

I refer to your request of 3^rd August to review the Council’s response to
your Freedom of Information Request.

 

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.   We are awaiting
clarification on the points you raised from our legal adviser.

 

Thank you  for your patience.

 

Regards

 

A McGirr

Pensions Manager

Falkirk Council

 

 

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investments, Falkirk Council

1 Attachment

Freedom of Information Request – Request for Review of Initial Response

Dear Mr Jones,  

I refer to:

·         your original FOI request of 24 June 2020;

·         the Council’s response on 13 July 2020 to provide the
information requested;

·         your subsequent request of 3 August 2020 for the decision to be
reviewed by the Council; and

·         your follow up comment of 7 August 2020

·         my holding email of 3 September  

I am responding on the basis that your email of 3 August was a request for
the Council to review its actions and information provided in terms of
Section 20 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Act).  
Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.

Regarding the points you raised:

You requested that the information be provided in a specific format – an
unlocked excel format – as opposed to pdf.  You also indicated that having
to extract data from pdf risked error. 

In reviewing your request, I considered your arguments and took legal
soundings. Ultimately, I have decided to accede to your request. This is
after weighing up the merits of your argument to have data provided in a
preferred format and the counter arguments of internal resource and that
providing information in a static pdf format was a proportionate way of
managing the risk that sensitive Fund data may be edited, adapted or
misinterpreted.  

In conclusion, I would also add that depending on the volume and frequency
of similar requests it may not always be possible in future to provide
information in preferred formats. 

The relevant spreadsheet is attached to this email response and I hope
this meets your requirements. 

 

Pensions Manager

For and on behalf of the Falkirk Council (in its capacity as the
administering authority of the Falkirk Council Pension Fund)  

 

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Dear investments,

Thank you for providing the excel format of the data. I just want to clarify the amounts provided by you. In the email from 13th of July 2020 you said: "Total value of the Fund investments in GBP is £1.7bn as at
31/03/2020." In the excel file provided by you, the final number excluding the cash is adding up to £2,208,381,584.21 . Could you confirm that this is the correct amount of your investments?

Yours sincerely,

Edward Jones