11 pages of “secret” documents show the gap between the assets and liabilties of Merseyside Pension Fund is growing

Councillor Paul Doughty Chair of the Pensions Committee deciding on Monday 23rd March on the advice of officers to keep all this a secret — Councillor Paul Doughty Chair of the Pensions Committee (on the right of the photo) deciding on Monday 23rd March on the advice of officers to keep all this a secret

I will declare at the start that I have a close relative paid a pension from the Merseyside Pension Fund. Below are 11 pages of the minutes of the Investment Monitoring Working Party meeting held on the 5th March 2015. On the advice of officers, councillors on the Pension Committee on Tuesday resolved to keep these minutes out of the public domain on the basis that it was “Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)” and that “in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information”.

I disagree and think there is a public interest in these minutes being in the public domain in the interests of openness and transparency.