WEDNESDAY'S NEWS
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News on the Pensions
Board report
(from Elaine Whitehouse, Communications Dept, RCB)
The Church of Ireland Pensions Board
paid tribute to the performances of its investment managers despite
reporting a 20% reduction in the assets of the Clergy Pensions Fund
during the past year.
Mr Hilary Morrison, proposing the
report to the General Synod, told members that the reduction in
asset values was partly due to the adverse effect of the stronger
euro against Sterling and other overseas assets and emphasised that
the Church’s fund managers had turned in “very creditable
performances” compared to the much larger falls in world markets.
Referring to the annual statement from
the Actuary, which anticipated a “significant actuarial deficit” at
the triennial valuation due on September this year, Mr Morrison
explained that this was largely due to the “severe fall” in world
stock markets over recent years and the parallel decline in
inflation and interest rates. Another important factor, well known
to employees across the world of work who were worried “more about
pensions than their jobs”, was the effect of increasing longevity on
the future liabilities of pension funds.
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The members of the Pensions Board, Mr
Morrison told his listeners, were “of a single mind” in their
determination to do everything possible to maintain a properly
funded defined pension scheme, being aware of the importance of such
a scheme to those who had made a full-time commitment to the
ordained ministry. The RCB as trustee had also been monitoring the
situation for some time and Mr Morrison saw no reason to doubt that
allocations from General Funds to clergy pensions would continue to
be a priority.
Mr Morrison also drew the Synod’s
attention to increases in pensions in payment, which had kept pace
with the general increases in minimum approved stipend, and to the
Supplemental Fund, which “played an invaluable part in assisting
those clergy and widows of an earlier generation who did not qualify
for the benefits of the Clergy Pensions Fund”.
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