Transparency in the Management of the Government Pension Fund (GPF) (NO0035)

Transparency is also a central principle in the management of the Government Pension
Fund (GPF). The GPF comprises the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) and
the Government Pension Fund Norway (GPFN) which are both instruments for general
savings on the part of the State. The Ministry of Finance has the overall responsibility
for the management of the two funds and submits a white paper on this every year.
These reports can be found on the Norwegian Government website.
The operational management of the GPFG and the GPFN are carried out by Norges
Bank and the National Insurance Scheme Fund respectively. The National Insurance
Scheme Fund’s reporting on the management of the GPFN (available at
http://www.ftf.no/en/home.aspx) is similar to the following description of the
reporting on Norges Bank’s management of the GPFG.
Norges Bank reports quarterly and annually on the management of the Fund. The
reports are published on the website http://www.nbim.no/en/. The intention of
openness lies implicit in the investment mandate, and it is explicitly mentioned in the
mandate that the reports shall be based on the greatest possible degree of transparency
within the limits defined by a sound execution of the investment mandate.
There are more than 7000 companies in the Fund’s portfolio. A full list of the Fund’s
holdings is published on the website once a year in connection with the Fund’s annual
report. Also the current value of the Fund is posted continuously on this website.
Further, Norges Bank informs about its vote in the various companies, right down to
how it votes in individual matters. It also reports on dialogues with individual
companies on corporate governance issues.

Norges Bank has recently decided to make voting results publicly available on its
website one business day after the conclusion of the general meeting.

23. Transparency in the management of the Government Pension Fund (GPF)

Commitment Text:

Transparency is also a central principle in the management of the Government Pension Fund (GPF). The GPF comprises the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) and the Government Pension Fund Norway (GPFN) which are both instruments for general savings on the part of the State. The Ministry of Finance has the overall responsibility for the management of the two funds and submits a white paper on this every year. […]

Norges Bank reports quarterly and annually on the management of the Fund […]

Parliament has appointed the Supervisory Council of Norges Bank. The Supervisory Council supervises the Bank’s operations and ensures that the Bank is compliant with the rules governing the Bank’s activities, including the management of the GPFG. […]

Companies shall be excluded from the investment universe of the Fund, pursuant to the guidelines for the Fund, if they are involved in production or undertakings that imply an unacceptably high risk that the company contributes to grossly unethical activities. The exclusion mechanism is handled by the Ministry of Finance after receiving recommendations from a separate body, the Council on Ethics. Information on the work of the Council is made public, as are the Council’s recommendations to the Ministry of Finance which is published when the Ministry of Finance has reached a decision […]

commitment description
Norges Bank has recently decided to make voting results publicly available on its website one business day after the conclusion of the general meeting.

Responsible institution: Ministry of Finance

Supporting institution(s): Norges Bank (Norway`s central bank)

Start date: Unclear            End date: Unclear

Editorial note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For the full text of the commitment, please see http://bit.ly/1QlVIja.

Policy Aim
This commitment aims to promote access to information regarding decision making in the management of Norway’s national pension fund. The national pension fund is a public good of significant interest to the general public and subject to political and financial investment decisions on a regular basis. Decisions by the bank to exclude companies from that investment fund, especially on ethical grounds, have been of particular salience in Norwegian public debate.^{[Note 130: Kristian Skårdalsmo, ”Slaget om Etikkrådet til Stortinget,” Dagsavisen, accessed October 11, 2016, http://www.dagsavisen.no/innenriks/slaget-om-etikkradet-til-stortinget-1.283149. ]} The IRM researcher was not able to identify a specific problem that this commitment sought to address despite desk research and correspondence with focal points for the commitment.^{[Note 131: Lill-Solrun Ryddheim Dahlin (Senior Adviser, Ministry of Finance), email correspondence with Christopher Wilson, August 2016. ]}

Status

Mid-term: Complete
This commitment was complete at the mid-term. Norges Bank makes voting results from general assembly meetings available online through their website (http://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/holdings/). A search by the IRM researcher of the website revealed that some voting records were available which fulfilled the commitment of making voting results publically available. For more information, please see IRM Progress Report 2013-2014.

Did it open government?

Access to information: Did not change

The publication of voting records is a positive step towards greater transparency for any government institution. However, it is not clear that this particular instance provides any additional useful information about exclusions from government pension funds because the recommendations from the Norwegian Ethical Council and Finance Department, on which Norges Bank’s divestment voting is based, are already public.

The website in question is, moreover, difficult to use. The primary search and browsing functionality is oriented around specific companies and includes a button for “voting.” For the majority of the companies tested by the IRM researcher, this button led to a page declaring that no voting information was available. The ministry focal point described this as a technical challenge and noted that complete voting records were nonetheless available at https://www.nbim.no/en/responsibility/voting-records/. When attempting to access this website, the IRM researcher reached a page indicating that the site was not accessible to the public.

The IRM researcher has not been able to confirm the publication of all the information described in this commitment, nor any impact that the commitment has had on government practice. It is worth noting, however, that if this had been the case at the point of the mid-term evaluation, the commitment would likely not have been coded as complete. It remains unclear to the IRM researcher to what extent the inability to access relevant information is due to temporary technical failures or more significant challenges within the Ministry of Finance.

Carried forward?

This commitment has not been carried forward in the Norwegian government’s third national action plan, which is available on the OGP website.^{[Note 132: ”Norway’s third action plan Open Government Partnership (OGP),” Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation, accessed September 4, 2016, http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Norway_2016-17_NAP.pdf.]}