7 Pensions Administration Activity and Performance Update PDF 288 KB
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Vicky Jenks, Pensions Admin Delivery Lead, presented this report which provided an update on key developments affecting Fire pensions administration and the performance of the Pensions Administration Service as comprehensively set out in the report, including the change of service provider, breaches, internal dispute resolution procedure, pension savings statements, an update on McCloud/Sargeant and the Matthews/O’Brien case.
In response to a question regarding the process in terms of annual allowance breaches, Vicky Jenks advised that pension savings statements would show occasions when there had been a breach but it had been possible to carry over any previous allowance to mitigate the tax charge; when the annual allowance had been exceeded resulting in a tax charge, the service tried to provide forewarning to the member involved. Paul Morley noted that communications in this respect had been very good in recent years and commented that it would be helpful to be in a position where it was possible to alert members to the tax impacts of decisions taken around promotions etc. Vicky Jenks responded that awareness raising communication around the situations that caused an individual to exceed the annual allowance was being considered.
In response to a question regarding McCloud/Sargeant and the payment of claims, Vicky Jenks advised that any individuals who had retired since the issue of the Home Office guidance had been processed as immediate detriment cases and paid based on the legacy scheme.
In relation to the approach to the Matthews/O’Brien case, Vicky Jenks noted that guidance on how to work out benefits when there was no pay data available was awaited. Payroll had advised that year end data was available in to the 1990s. In terms of the first exercise, it was understood that an average for each station and callouts would be used to provide each member with a pension based on that average. In instances when the data was not available, the data from a similar fire service could be utilised. She noted that it would be a very complicated situation and that there would need to be some collaboration to see what data FRAs were using to reach a reasonable assumption as to what pension benefits should look like. There was some discussion around the archives that might be useable if it was legally possible to do so but some archived records may have been disposed of in the recent Bin Scan Store project.
In response to a question regarding regional collaboration, Vicky Jenks advised that four pension funds across the region had outsourced administration to West Yorkshire Pension Fund. A meeting had been held on 8 November 2021 to test the appetite for collaboration as a group of customers to ensure that the needs of all four FRAs were being met and to identify any efficiencies of scale could be generated through adopting similar methods of working with West Yorkshire Pension Fund. This had generated some interest from the FRAs and more collaboration meetings would follow.
The Chair asked about the delegations that had ... view the full minutes text for item 7