City in push for ‘ethical’ pension

Jul 2 2008 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

Liverpool Town Hall

LIVERPOOL council is demanding that thousands of local government workers in Merseyside be balloted on whether their pension funds should be invested ethically.

Pressure on the pension fund administered by Wirral Council to adopt an ethical investment policy is expected to be stepped up next week.

A resolution by Liverpool City Council calling on the fund to ballot its members on their preferred ethical approach to investing their pension money is anticipated to have all-party support.

Wirral Council, which administers the pension fund shared by workers at five Merseyside councils, blocked attempts to halt investment on ethical grounds last November – but says it has “an ethical dimension” to the investment policy.

The decision to make no changes to its investment strategy was despite councils in Liverpool, St Helens and Knowsley, whose employees are among the pension fund’s thousands of investors, all passing resolutions calling for the fund to pull out of companies involved in the arms trade.

Liverpool councillor Richard Ogle-thorpe said the proposal could have wider implications if the local fund, worth some £4bn, takes up the plan.

He said: “It’s a step in the dark because most pension funds I have any knowledge of are run by small groups of people with-out reference to their members.

“There are a small number of pension funds that have an ethical stance, but this is different. What I am saying is it’s all very well a small group of councillors and council officers in Wirral taking these decisions but they have not consulted their members on what they think is important.

“These funds are invested around the world to make a profit for the pension fund. These investments can have a range of consequences on countries and people where the investment is made, depending on the type of activity invested in.