Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Lisa Eglesfield (Pension Administration Service Manager). She advised there had been no policy updates during the previous quarter. A full discretions document was being created with the help of colleagues in HR and Legal and this would be presented to the Board after it had been taken to the next Staff and Pensions Committee. Arising from the previous meeting, Lisa Eglesfield confirmed the Fund followed the six key processes that would ensure good governance.

Regulations had been updated to reflect changes relating to carers’ leave and the firefighters pension scheme. The payroll system had been amended to reflect these changes. Lisa Eglesfield told members there had been an error relating to revaluation orders for care pension pots, as projected figures had been used in 2021 and 2022 instead of the actual figures. The projected figures were too low, so there would be an increase to the size of pension pots. Administration changes to remedy this would be undertaken by the West Yorkshire Pension Fund on Warwickshire’s behalf. Lisa Eglesfield advised this was a national issue and not one that was unique to Warwickshire.

Regarding McCloud, Lisa Eglesfield said that since the time the report was written immediate choice and RSS had been put on hold while there were outstanding issues with HMRC around the treatment of interest. The interest rate for McCloud cases was set at eight per cent, but HMRC were questioning whether that was a commercial rate and cases relating to unauthorised payments had been put on hold while this was remedied. Cases where it had been established there was no chance of any unauthorised payment could be proceeded with however. There had been ten identified instances of unauthorised payments having been confirmed, of which four related to ill health cases. Members were told there is currently no regulatory provision to allow tax that has already been paid to offset tax which is due under the new calculation.

Lisa Eglesfield reminded members of the second retained exercise, which allowed members of the retained pension scheme to buy back service that previously they had only been able to purchase in the first modified exercise from 1 July 2000 onwards. Similar issues in the McCloud case relating to paying arrears, and whether payments had been authorised or not, were being worked on. The Pension Fund was relying on a calculator issued by the Local Government Association. The LGA had also published a guide to help work out payments related to three of the scenarios associated with the second retained exercise, but a total of 37 different scenarios had been identified. Lisa Eglesfield said strong internal controls needed to be established before any required additional payments were made.

Following a question, it was clarified that payments that could be ten years in arrears would be made in a single payment and there would only be one associated tax payment instead of ten. Helen Scargill (Client Relationship Manager, West Yorkshire Pension Fund) said HMRC would use their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2