Council spending £347 million a year in fees to investment managers for Pension Funds

While generally councils has been finding savings one area of increased spending has been highlighted by the Daily Telegraph. The fees paid to investment managers rose last year to £347 million - up 9% on the £319 million the previous year.

The analysis suggests a wide variation often with fees being cut. But the examples used by the Telegraph suggest that it is Labour councils that are the most generous in handing over increased dollops of Council Taxpayers money to fat cat fund managers.

Lewisham Council's fees were up 85% to £3 million. Durham's were up by 41% to
£8.7 million.

The report adds:

Pension fund charges fell in other parts of the country, 39 per cent in Cambridgeshire to £2.8million and down 37 per cent in Richmond-upon-Thames to £675,000

There was also a big disparity between funds, with Kent paying out nearly £4million in fees to fund managers more than Lancashire, despite having a smaller fund.

A breakdown shows taxpayers in some of the country's poorest boroughs supporting payments to some of the City’s biggest fund managers.

Camden paid out £2.8million fund managers including £1.1million to Aberdeen Asset Management and £667,000 to Fidelity while Barking and Dagenham paid £2.2million to fund managers including Aberdeen Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, Prudential and Schroders.

The Pension Funds amount to £158.6 billion. So it makes sense to make some effort to get the best return possible. But it is not clear why the fees should have risen so sharply. Nor it is clear that having all these separate funds each with their own teams of advisers offers the best value for money.