Financial Statements

Scheme Account

LGPS aggregated Scheme Account as at 31 March

Net Assets Statement

LGPS aggregated Net Assets Statement as at 31 March

Notes

The LGPS Annual Report is based on each individual LGPS funds’ statutory annual reports and audited financial statements as at 31 March, these been collated and published in one place. The intention is to build a complete and comparable set of annual reports for the scheme in its entirety, as a whole and for every fund.
The annual accounts have been reviewed to draw out any information which is reported completely and consistently across all funds. At the highest level of financial reporting, the fund financial statements have been gathered together and totalled to produce an aggregated Scheme account and net assets statement.

The Statement of Accounts summarise the Scheme’s transactions for the year and its position at year end as at 31 March. The data used comes from the individual LGPS funds’ financial statements which are prepared in accordance with the Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom (The Code). The Code is issued by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, CIPFA and is based on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as amended for the UK public sector. The individual LGPS fund accounts have been prepared on an accruals basis in accordance with the Code, apart from transfer values which are accounted for on a cash basis in accordance with the Code.

The Net Assets Statement, similarly summarises the Scheme’s assets over the year and its position at year end as at 31 March.

The individual LGPS fund accounts do not take account of obligations to pay pensions and benefits which fall due after the end of the financial year, nor do they take into account the actuarial present value of promised retirement benefits. IAS 26 gives administering authorities the option to disclose this information by appending an actuarial report, prepared for this purpose. If not part of the annual report, these statements have also been collated and are shown as attachments in the split records column.
These statements are as at the most recent Scheme valuation date. In the case for 2017 annual reports, this is 31 March 2016.

Data limitations

It is important to note that the data contained in this LGPS Annual Report is based on the individual LGPS fund annual report and audited accounts. The SAB is reliant on the general accuracy of the fund annual reports without independent verification. Whilst the data have been checked for reasonableness and consistency, a full independent audit of the aggregated data has not been completed.
The charts, analysis and general commentary are based on the face accounts, or broad ‘high-level’ figures. Analysis of account notes demonstrated variations in depth of reporting and subjective interpretation of some accounting classifications.
These findings in analysing the more detailed notes sections of the annual reports have been shared with CIPFA and DCLG in order to support their work in improving guidance on annual report and accounts and collection of SF3 data. The information may also be used by the LGPS advisory board sub committees to help establish baseline datasets and to build on comparable metrics for assessing the financial health of each individual fund and the scheme as a whole.