Minutes:
The item was introduced by Lisa Eglesfield. She said that usage and takeup of the Member Self-Service portal was continuing to slowly increase. Data showed members were performing administrative tasks themselves, freeing up staff to perform other duties.
Annual benefit statements for active and deferred members were due to be sent out within the next few weeks and would be released onto the portal. Members with an email address would be contacted to encourage them to access and sign up to the portal to view their statement. Annual benefit statements for live members would be issued by 31 August and this deadline was on target to be met.
The key
performance indicators had changed for the new financial year and
had increased in number. Currently there were five that were off
target, of which two were new and processes relating to them were
taking time to embed.
P60s had been sent
out to all pension holders well before the deadline of 31
May.
Updated guidance received from the Scheme Advisory Board stated that annual reports should now include data on matters such as work in progress, phone calls and emails received, staff experiences, and number of vacancies. Processes had been set up that would enable this data to be compiled, which would also be used by the Council’s internal reporting teams.
There had been a breach against 12 employers in February and March due to late iConnect reports. This issue was linked to a change in payroll provider. Lisa Eglesfield said the pensions team were continually looking at more ways to engage with our employers on the importance of informing them of payroll system changes so there would be no disruption to the return of information. Reminders were sent out in the monthly newsletter and at quarterly meetings.
There had been two Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure claims. One had been completed and there had been no change to the initial decision, and the other was still at the investigation stage.
Good progress was
being made with the pensions dashboard project and the Fund was on
track to meet the connection date of 31 October 2025. The date for
the public to connect to the dashboard was still to be announced.
Lisa Eglesfield said the Fund had an approved business case for the
project, an action plan and project manager, and it was reaching
the final stages of procurement of the integrated service provider
to connect the Fund to the dashboard. A Norfolk framework was being
used to facilitate the ISP procurement.
The McCloud
project was drawing to a close and all future work would be
calculated in line with the new regulations. The project team have
now returned to their usual team positions and are working through
the calculations performed during the remedy period to check for
any rectification needed. Lisa Eglesfield said 14,000 in-scope
people had been identified; out of those, 11,500 records had been
completely finished. Work was being done in line with LGA guidance
on prioritising the remaining 2,500 records. This had been updated
on 4 July but further updates on areas such as divorce, debits and
credit were expected later. Lisa Eglesfield said the team was well
in advance of many other Funds nationally with its work on
McCloud.
Responding to a question from Jeff Carruthers, Lisa Eglesfield said it was anticipated there would be a much bigger takeup for the Member Self-Service portal when the dashboard was launched. Although more people were signing up for the portal, this did not necessarily translate to a decrease in Fund staff’s workload as some of those signing up were younger so did not need to ask any questions relating to their pension options at present. A demonstration had been given by the portal’s system provider that showed the next version of the member self service system and its new functionality.
Responding to a question from Seb Burch, Lisa Eglesfield said it was possible to draw down data on which demographic groups were interacting most with the portal and see who was most likely to ask questions about certain topics, although this was not something was being actively collected yet. However the team had been trained to push and engage with every interaction with the portal.
Regarding
breaches, Lisa Eglesfield said the latest reported breach was a
different one to the employer that had previously had issues with a
change of payroll provider which had led to a report to the
regulator. The Fund would inform the regulator as to what had been
identified, who had been affected and how they had been informed,
and what steps were being taken to deal with it. There was also a
mechanism for notifying the employer of a breach, although this
tended to only apply to red or amber cases.
Responding to a question from Councillor Ian Shenton, Lisa Eglesfield said it was difficult to make a direct comparison between payment times of lump sums as the target times and percentages had changed. This is why the performance measure was shown as N/A within the report. She said she would check to see if there was a reason why the target timeframe had changed from 10 days to 15 and report back to members. It had been done on the recommendation of the Scheme Advisory Board.
Members noted the contents of the report.
Supporting documents: