Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Vicky Jenks, who outlined the work that had been undertaken by the Pensions Administration Service and provided updates.

The number of people signing up to the Member Self Service portal was continuing to increase. There had been a particularly good uptake by people in the 51-65 age range, although there were fewer younger people registering for the portal. A targeted exercise to encourage those aged 41-45 to sign up had been proposed, to help people prepare for their retirement. Employers were continuing to be encouraged to tell people about the benefits of using the system. Vicky Jenks told members that June was the first month that pensioner payslips had defaulted to being sent electronically. She said 66 per cent of pensioners were now receiving e-payslips. There remained a significant number of pensioners who had not contacted the Fund about their payslips, and work was continuing to encourage greater sign-up. Vicky Jenks said however that if any changes were made to the value of a pension, the pensioner would be informed by letter.

Members were told that six of the 14 key performance indicators were meeting their target. Vicky Jenks said officers were looking at the processes associated with the KPIs not meeting their targets to see if they were still fit for purpose. The majority not meeting the target were at least 80 per cent or more.

There were a higher than normal number of green breaches recorded in April. This was attributed partly to the breaches being caused by Multi Academy Trusts using the same payroll provider, coupled with a higher than usual number of school holidays scheduled for April and May and schools missing the deadline. There were no current IDRP cases.

The timescale for implementation of the Pensions Dashboard scheme had been pushed back to 31 October 2026, following a statement from the Minister for Pensions. Vicky Jenks said there was still plenty of work to do to ensure the dashboard could be launched in time, particularly relating to data quality around personal details that would enable a person’s information to be found. Work was also taking place to ensure data was up to date for cases affected by McCloud that would require rectification.

Responding to a point raised by Mike Snow in relation to signing up to the MSS portal, Vicky Jenks said employees of schools and academies were the biggest group of members that had not yet signed up. Officers from the Pension Fund would be making visits to give presentations to some employers to encourage sign-up.

The Chair asked for the acronym SCAPE to be explained in future reports. Vicky Jenks said it stood for superannuation contributions adjusted for past experience and helped to calculate future benefit payment rates.

Responding to a point raised by the Chair, Vicky Jenks said calculating and notifying of deferred benefits was the source of the Fund’s biggest volume of work. If the Fund was notified of an intention to defer at the end  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3