For both APS and NAPS, the Trustees have ultimate responsibility for decision making on investment matters, including the asset-liability matching
strategy. The latter is a form of investing designed to match the movement in pension plan assets with the movement in projected benefit obligations
over time. The Investment Committee adopts an annual business plan which sets out investment objectives and work required to support achievement
of these objectives. The Investment Committee also deals with the monitoring of performance and activities, including work on developing the
strategic benchmark to improve the risk return profile of the scheme where possible, as well as having a trigger-based dynamic governance process to
be able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. The Investment Committee reviews the existing investment restrictions, performance
benchmarks and targets, as well as continuing to develop the de-risking and liability hedging portfolio.
The strategic benchmark for asset allocations differentiate between 'return seeking assets' and 'liability matching assets'. Given the respective maturity
of each scheme, the proportion for APS and NAPS vary. At 31 December 2015 the benchmark for APS, expressed as a percentage of the assets
excluding the insurance contract, was 18.7 per cent (2014: 21.2 per cent) in return seeking assets and 81.3 per cent (2014: 78.8 per cent) in liability
matching investments; and for NAPS the benchmark was 68 per cent (2014: 68 per cent) in return seeking assets and 32 per cent (2014: 32 per cent) in
liability matching investments. Bandwidths are set around these strategic benchmarks that allow for tactical asset allocation decisions, providing
parameters for the Investment Committee and its investment managers to work within.
In addition to this, APS has an insurance contract with Rothesay Life which now covers 24 per cent (2014: 24 per cent) of the pensioner liabilities for an
agreed list of members. The insurance contract is based on future increases to pensions in line with RPI inflation and will match future obligations on
that basis for that part of the scheme. The insurance contract can only be used to pay or fund employee benefits under the scheme. APS also has
secured a longevity swap contract with Rothesay Life, which covers an additional 20 per cent (2014: 20 per cent) of the pensioner liabilities for the
same members covered by the insurance contract above. The value of the contract is based on the difference between the value of the payments
expected to be received under this contract and the pensions payable by the scheme under the contract.
Both schemes use derivative instruments for both investment purposes and to manage exposures to financial risks, such as interest rate, foreign
exchange and liquidity risks arising in the normal course of business. Exposure to interest-rate risk is managed through the use of Inflation-Linked Swap
contracts. Foreign exchange forward contracts are entered into to mitigate the risk of currency fluctuations. For NAPS, a strategy exists to provide
protection against the equity market downside risk by reducing some of the upside participation.