Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Lisa Eglesfield. She reminded members of the number of identified cases from the second modified exercise and said there were around 100 people the Fund had had no contact with. A meeting had been held with a tracing company the previous week to trace addresses, or to establish if a pension holder had passed away. This exercise needed to be completed by April 2025, although there had been an indication from the LGA that this deadline may need to be extended.

There had been no breaches during the quarter referenced in the report. However an issue relating to temporary promotions had been identified, as they were not pensionable benefits and records had not been set up correctly. The LGA had been consulted on how to deal with these and the Fund was liaising with colleagues at West Yorkshire to resolve the issue, but it was anticipated that incorrect payments had been made and this could ultimately lead to some breaches needing to be reported to the pensions regulator. The issue had come to light after West Yorkshire had analysed the data. Previously identified errors had been resolved during a reconciliation exercise that took place in 2022.

The Fund’s payroll team had been working on three different spreadsheets for live, deferred and pensioner members in relation to McCloud. They had then been liaising with the West Yorkshire Pension Fund regarding cases that were either approaching or had reached their RSS deadline. Four ill health members had been written to to inform them of delays, and a further six may need to be contacted. Consideration was being given to referring members affected by RSS to the West Yorkshire Fund’s information portal.

Helen Scargill said training was being offered to employers regarding pensions and these could be registered for online. Feedback from previous training sessions had been limited in numbers but had been positive.