This report was received from Brian Marks. His personal comments, as opposed to things actually discussed, are in square brackets. The Webmaster would welcome reports from others.  The documents section of this website has reports on other AGMs.

The report from the Lab this year was given by Stuart Fawkes.  His title is "Manager Hursley Communications & SWG Executive Briefing Centre", roughly speaking the man in charge of giving a good impression of the Lab to customers and the public.  [Previously it has been the Lab Manager reporting for the Lab, and I believe previously to that it has been the Lab Director]

Much of the presentation was taken up with a video extolling the good work done with clients and with organisations like those helping kids, so plenty of feel-good factor.  [The client project that caught my attention was an insurer planning a box in our cars that would record where we went and at what speed, through satellite technology.  I wonder how many people would want to give up that information in return for a somewhat cheaper insurance? (That is cheaper if they drove in the way the insurance company wanted them to.)  We know from our experience with emails that once private companies had the ability to record where our emails went, the government was quick to require them to make the information available to the authorities.] 

With this sort of presentation one does not expect much in the way of statistics but there were some.  The Lab population continues to be "around 3000" with 82 recruits in the year, 50% of them newly graduated. [The 82 is less than the 115 in 2002.  Nothing was said about trends, which suggests the leavers were more numerous than the recruits.] For the UK, a figure of 26000 staff was given, including "agency partners".  [Whoever they are]

The roughly 3000 at the Lab comprise 1600 "professionals" plus others. [I don't know what definition of "professional" was being used.  Are secretaries professionals?]

99 patents derived from Lab ideas were filed last year.  [We don't know how many of these could do significant good to actual products but anyway a portfolio of patents is a plus when negotiating with other companies.]

[It was noticeable that much of the work-with-universities and assistance of not-for-profit organisations was similar to the work done by the Scientific Centre and the IBM Trust when they were based in Winchester more than a decade ago.  Now that work is back in Hursley.]

There is a scheme called "On Demand - Communities" where IBM employees who want to volunteer their time for good causes can do so with an "IBM" label attached to them, and can gain from a website and structure designed to help.  This scheme will be extended to retirees in the coming year.  This was described as a preferable alternative to offering money and equipment.

The Chairman, Martin Circuit, then introduced Kevin Waller (from Pensions Administration in North Harbour)  to speak on behalf of the Pensions Trust - the same pair of names as for the last ten years.  With the recent announcement of a pensions increase [albeit one that left the value of your pension further eroded] and with the markets recovering [albeit still well short of historical highs], it was likely that Kevin would not face searching questions.   It was left to the chairman to make the points that:

- not having a fixed month of the year for review of pensions in payment was unsatisfactory.  [All other companies AMIPP knows about have a fixed month.  No reason has ever been given to the scheme members for IBM's uniqueness.]

- the retiree AGMs nowadays got poor support from North Harbour, with no executives attending, in contrast to times when five or six would.  [Also noticeable was the Trust decision that neither the chairman of the Trust or any of its other directors would present themselves for questioning.  If the executives or the directors had been available they might have been asked "Is IBM UK's pensions in payment policy the worst in the country and if not please name a worst company."   (This question has been asked before and no company name has emerged)]

Kevin gave a few statistics - return on investment for the fund running at 16%, leading to its assets going from £2.9B to £3.2B.  Payments to more than 10,000 retirees totalling more than £12M per month.  Employer contribution of £79M.

Kevin then outlined some features of the forthcoming Pensions Bill and Inland Revenue rule changes, noting that there would be almost no effect on current retirees.   [You can find a fuller explanation of the Pension Protection Fund and the IR rules on this website, with discussion in the messages.  Kevin equated the IR lifetime limit of £1.4M to a pension of £70K p.a.]

There was a question on the day of the month that pensions are delivered.  The answer is the 6th or the first working day following the 6th.

After Kevin, the meeting reverted to retiree club business.  There is one replacement on the committee, with Ron Wilks elected.

The accounts show a 2003 surplus of around £10K, on a total income of some £38K of which £26.5K was IBM subsidy.

The 2004 programme of trips was discussed.  I won't reproduce it here, for fear of making errors, but it does include a trip to France.    

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