Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Brian Hammersley, David Velazquez, Sian Marsh and Paul Morley.

(As stipulated by the Public Sector Pensions Act 2013 and set out in Annex A of the Agreed Board Terms of Reference).

None.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 November 2023 were approved as an accurate record. There were no matters arising.

The item was introduced by Lisa Eglesfield (Pension Administration Delivery Manager). The risk register had been reviewed as per usual practice, with the section relating to the Matthews project being the only one to receive an update. This was to reflect the availability of a revised calculator from the government’s actuarial department and historic pay information, meaning it was now possible for retained officers who were active at a set time to be able to buy into their service pension. Calculations were now taking place, although Lisa Eglesfield said in response to a question from the Chair that some of these would need to be done on a manual basis as some retained officers were still in scope and there were limitations on the new calculator’s ability to calculate payments for certain people. Issues relating to this were being reported back to the LGA.

Members noted the contents of the risk register.

The item was introduced by Lisa Eglesfield. She said there had been a revised valuation of employer contribution rates of pensionable pay, which had risen by 8.5% to 37.6%. This would take effect from 1 April 2024 and last until 31 March 2027. Lisa Eglesfield said the increase in contribution rates was due to the age discrimination remedy and the Matthews project, both of which would increase pension liability for all Funds. This had been taken into account when setting the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy. It had been confirmed there would be a top up grant issued by the Treasury.

Lisa Eglesfield said the pension increase figures had been released after the report had been written. It had been confirmed these would rise by 6.7% from the first Monday of the new tax year. Additionally, care pension pots would rise by 7.7% from April 1, in line with the Treasury order.

Members were told the lifetime allowance limit had now been removed. Previously there had been a limit on the amount of pension benefits someone could own without incurring extra tax liability. Lisa Eglesfield said the removal of this limit would allow greater freedoms regarding pension savings for members. However, there would still be a limit of £268,275 on the amount of tax free lump sum that a member could choose. Members wishing to access a lump sum over this amount would have it taxed as income using the appropriate tax code. Communications on this to make members aware was being worked on by the LGA and would be circulated nearer the end of the tax year.

Lisa Eglesfield said the terms of reference and the contract conflicts of interest policy had been reviewed by Legal and were now being combined into one policy. The wording of the policy was included in the papers for members to view.

Members were told the next meeting of the Staff and Pensions Committee would consider a recommendation that Warwickshire County Council’s functions as the scheme manager of the Fire Pension Scheme should be delegated to the Section 151 officer, in line with the Local Government Pension Scheme and other finance-related functions of the Council. Currently it is delegated to the Chief Fire Officer. Administration of the scheme would remain with the West Yorkshire Pension Fund.

Responding to a question from the Chair, Liz Firmstone (Head of Finance Transformation and Transactions) said there was likely to be a funding gap of £88,000 caused by the increase in employer contribution rates. This was being managed as part of the Medium Term Financial Plan. The Chair noted there appeared to be a national disparity between estimated additional costs and the grant that Funds would receive.

Members noted the contents of the updates.

Lisa Eglesfield said training for new Board members had been arranged through the LGA, who had said refresher sessions could also be booked for existing members. Lisa Eglesfield said any members wishing to take part in training should contact her. Links to the available training programmes would be circulated to members along with the minutes of the meeting. It was confirmed a training log for members was maintained.

Members noted the updated Forward Plan.

Lisa Eglesfield said 118 people who were believed to be in scope for the Matthews project had been identified and written to in December. Of those, 43 had replied asking for more information, six had been returned as no longer at the address, and the remainder had received no response. The figures for the 43 respondees were now being calculated and it was hoped these could be distributed by late March with the view to make funding available to make payments from the start of the new tax year. Further reminders would be sent to the 69 people who had not yet responded. Lisa Eglesfield said a signed-for letter would be sent; if these were signed for and no response was received then this would be taken as an indication the recipient was not interested and there would be no further communications sent to that person. Attempts would be made to trace the six people no longer at the address held on the database through the Department of Work and Pensions’ tracing service. Lisa Eglesfield said there were regular check-in meetings to ensure appropriate progress was being made as there were strict deadlines. Responding to a question from the Chair, Lisa Eglesfield said around 15 of the people yet to respond were serving firefighters. Sally Waldron said WFRS could help by sending out reminders through station managers to encourage more responses. Pay data existed as far back as 2006; anything prior to this was calculated using averages.

Regarding the McCloud age discrimination remedy, Lisa Eglesfield said the Warwickshire Pension Fund had supplied the West Yorkshire Pension Fund with the data needed for pension calculations for the remedy period, but further work needed to be done regarding contributions. The calculations were then being worked out through a calculator tool released through the government’s actuarial department, which took into account different contribution rates and adjustments for tax and interest. Members within scope, and retirement cases, had been identified and payroll were working to get all the information needed for the West Yorkshire Pension Fund to calculate the annual benefit statements.

Lisa Eglesfield said the time the report was written, there had been a breach in relation to the non disclosure relating to the six Matthews cases, where the disclosure letter was returned gone away. She said this did not qualify as a material breach so would not be reported to the Pensions Regulator.

Helen Scargill (West Yorkshire Pension Fund) introduced the December monthly report to members. There had been one case of a death in retirement where there had been a delay in the length of time taken to get the managed certificate from the beneficiary, meaning there had been a KPI that had not met its timeframe. The Chair asked if some of the KPIs could be refined and gave this as an example. He said it was unclear if the delay had been caused by the individual not supplying the information, or if there had been a fault caused by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

There were no additional items of business.

Future meeting dates are as follows:

3 June 2024

23 September 2024

4 November 2024

10 February 2025

All meetings to start at 2pm

Members noted the dates of future meetings.