We also won the first ever Impact Investing Adopters Award (November 2021) from Pensions for Purpose and we were also re accredited by Customer Service Excellence in May 2022, having met this standard for over 20 years. South Yorkshire Pensions Authority have also been shortlisted for the following up-coming awards:
- Pensions for Purpose awards for Impact Investing Adopter Award
- Place Based Impact Investing Award and,
- Pension Age Awards for Defined Benefit Scheme of the Year.
It really is an exciting time to be joining us.
We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice, offering a range of training and development opportunities and career progression allowing you to manage your own development journey and empowering you to control your career. Perhaps most importantly you will be welcomed by talented teams.
We positively encourage productive, flexible working and we provide you with the technology you need to work from our Barnsley office and at home (we also offer a home-working allowance to all staff who work part of the week at home).
If you are interested in joining our team and are inspired to help lead the next phase of our journey, we look forward to your application. In the meantime, following an initial conversation with our recruitment partners at The Resourcing Solution I would be delighted to discuss this opportunity with those who might wish to learn a little more.
George Graham, Director of the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority.
Job title: Investment Manager
Location: Barnsley / Hybrid Working
Contract: Full-time / Permanent
Salary: £49,587 - £55,944 per annum plus relocation support
This is a key post within South Yorkshire Pensions Authority, and as part of the Leadership Team you will be responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring the investment strategy and taking responsibility for a portfolio of your own.
The South Yorkshire Pension Fund manages assets currently valued at around £10bn, spread over a wide range of underlying assets but with around 70% of the Fund currently managed in pooled products provided by the Border to Coast Pensions Partnership.
The Fund has a long-standing commitment to responsible investment and is an active participant in the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) and other collaborative initiatives around the delivery of Net Zero and Impact Investing. A significant amount of work in these areas and in relation to oversight of various property related investments is currently carried out by the Assistant Director – Investment Strategy which is not sustainable in the longer term..
The requirements on LGPS funds in relation to reporting and investment governance are increasing and in recognition of this and to provide more resilience to the Team and draw some of the work done by the Director into the Team this new role of Investment Manager has been created. The role fits into the structure as show below:
The role will be responsible for the following portfolios:
- UK Commercial Property (eventual Border to Coast pooled fund)
- Global Property (eventual Border to Coast pooled fund)
- Agricultural Property and potentially growing this into a wider natural capital allocation
- Impact and Local Investment
Subject to decisions in the ongoing strategy review these portfolios could total around £1.5bn. The role holder’s responsibility will include:
- Development of portfolio strategy for those portfolios not in pooled funds
- Oversight and monitoring of fund managers
- Fund selection
- Reporting on the performance of the various portfolios
Responsibility for oversight and monitoring of other Border to Coast products may be added depending on overall capacity within both the individual and the rest of the Team.
You will take the lead on delivering the Authority’s Responsible Investment ambitions and in particular meeting specific reporting requirements in relation to the following principal areas:
- The UK Stewardship Code
- The Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure
- Quarterly Reporting to the Authority and stakeholders
- Regular reporting on the impact of investments on place and on people and planet
To fulfil these requirements, you will be required to commission work from specialist consultants (for example in relation to climate scenario analysis) and manage the delivery of work by these consultants.
Collaboration is central to the way in which SYPA delivers its investment objectives and you will be expected to become involved in work within the Border to Coast Pensions Partnership and other groups such as LAPFF to further the Authority’s objectives and achieve more “bang for our buck”.
Demonstrating passion and enthusiasm, you will have with a good understanding of current investment issues and how they can be addressed within investment strategies and the ability to identify and develop new investment opportunities.
Experience of working within the investment management industry is essential while experience of doing so within a large pension fund is desirable.
Your success in this role will draw on your considerable pension fund/ investment management experience across a broad range of asset classes, high-level investment analysis, and reporting skills.
We are looking for someone who can be seen as a leading voice in the Local Government Pension Scheme and the Border to Coast Pension Partnership and can draw upon knowledge and skill to lead discussions on investment strategy as well as managing the investment portfolio.
Finally, whilst an investment related qualification (such as CFA, the Investment Management Certificate, or the CFA ESG Investing Certificate) is desirable, it is not essential if you can lead with credibility and demonstrate a compelling background in the investment management industry / working within a large pension fund.
Come and join us!
We are a growing public sector organisation with a team of around 100 staff who run the workplace pension scheme, managing a Fund of over £10 billion on behalf of nearly 600 employing organisations, including Local Authorities and other public / not-for-profit sector bodies.
South Yorkshire Pensions Authority is responsible for administering the Local Government Pension Scheme in South Yorkshire. The Authority was created in 1988 as part of the arrangements put in place following the abolition of South Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council. The Authority itself is made up of 12 Councillors drawn from the 4 districts in the County.
Our Mission Statement
“To deliver a sustainable and cost-effective pension scheme for members and employers in South Yorkshire delivering high levels of customer service and strong investment returns which facilitate stable contributions”
The Pensions Authority's workforce is headed by the Director and is organised around three streams of activity, each led by an Assistant Director, reflecting the focus of its work in relation to:
- Scheme members
- Investment of the Pension Fund's assets, and
- The running of the organisation
The diagram below shows how the different elements of our governance arrangements fit together and how they relate to the various elements of the Border to Coast Pensions Partnership in relation to investment matters.
The beginning of last year saw the country still in the grips on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with staff still working from home but the vaccine programme beginning to get things moving once again. The end of the year saw war breakout in Europe after almost 80 years.
These events create significant challenges for the Authority in terms of its operations and from the impact of volatility in the financial markets on our investments. Despite this, we have had a range of successes and delivered a significant amount of work over the last 12 months including:
- Processing 61,000 individual transactions with scheme members within the administration service.
- In October 2021 £574m in assets transferred to the new Border to Coast Multi-Asset Credit Fund and we awarded a contract for actuarial services to a new provider, Hymans Robertson, following a competitive procurement exercise.
- From September 2021 to January 2022, we invested over £35m (as part of a £80m allocation) in local development loans to provide regeneration to the Eyewitness and Ceylon works sites in Sheffield for housing and industrial redevelopment at the former B&Q site at Darnall, Sheffield, Gateway 36 in Barnsley and the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.
- In November 2021 we were awarded the Impact Investing Adopters Award from Pensions for Purpose for our adoption of an impact focussed approach to our investments and March 2022 saw us publish our first impact report which sets out the impact of our investments on people and planet for our stakeholders.
- February 2022 saw the official opening of our new Oakwell House Office in Barnsley, providing a modern working environment for our staff and designed to support the move to a hybrid working arrangement.
- It also saw £191m of assets transfer to the new Border to Coast Listed Alternatives Fund, meaning that just over 70% of the Fund is now managed by the Pool.
This is just a small sample of some of our achievements over the last 12 months.
We operate a flexible working policy which allows for a hybrid of home and office working, with a superb, newly refurbished office tailor-made for hybrid working, offering free staff parking. We are committed to providing a healthy work-life balance and so you will benefit from between 27- and 35-days’ annual leave depending on length of service together with access to a flexitime scheme, as well as the opportunity to join the generous Local Government salary related pension scheme. There are plenty of learning and development opportunities too, including access for all our staff to LinkedIn Learning. A relocation package is also available for eligible applicants, details of which can be found above.
South Yorkshire is full of pleasant surprises. Once an industrial heartland, the region has been transformed into a 21st Century playground with a passion for music, sport and culture.
Surrounded by ancient villages and historic parkland, Barnsley has grown into a lively shopping and social hub with a range of independent shops a new