Following the Treasury’s Request for Proposal to execute the one-in-five year statutory review of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation (the Guardians), the Minister of Finance (MoF) has approved the appointment of Willis Towers Watson to conduct the review. The Treasury conducted a thorough evaluation process which considered a number of high-quality proposals.
The review will examine how efficiently and effectively the Guardians is performing its functions as outlined in section 71 of The New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001. It is expected that a final report will be presented to the MOF and the Guardians by 1 July 2024.
The Terms of Reference for the review address the requirements set out in the Act. These include: reviewing the appropriateness of, and compliance with, the policies, standards and procedures of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, as well as an evaluation of the investment performance of the Fund overall. The operational and investment processes will be the ‘deep dive’ focus of the 2024 review. This will include an evaluation on how the Guardians are managing risk and liquidity; governance; optimising endowments; asset allocation techniques; internal vs external investment management, and ethical/sustainable investment frameworks.
For more information on the Treasury's role in relation to the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, see Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation.