Agenda item

The item was introduced by Vicky Jenks, who provided members with an update on the work of the administration team. The main project being worked on was the member self-service portal. This year’s pension statements had been provided digitally, except for cases where the member had opted in to continue receiving paper copies. All deferred annual benefit statements had now been released; there had been errors in a small number , meaning not all of the statements were ready by the deadline, as these were still being worked on. Vicky Jenks said 98 per cent of the active annual benefit statements had been released by 6 August. There were issues with 354 statements as there were queries with the data provided by the employer. Overall there had been a reduction in the number of queries at year end. The introduction of the iConnect system was credited with helping this. Responding to a point raised by the Chair, Vicky Jenks said takeup to member self service had been quite good. If anyone contacted the Fund with a query they would be directed to the portal and asked to set up an account. Steps were also being taken to promote the portal amongst employers. At the time of the report being published 24 per cent of eligible scheme members had signed up, and it was expected this figure had increased since. It was noted that awareness on pensions was increasing nationally, and a campaign was due to start at the end of the month. Vicky Jenks said the data was being checked on a more regular basis by the pensions team and the funds actuary  and it it had been noted thatdata quality had improved..

Responding to a point raised by the Chair, Vicky Jenks said not all of the key performance indicators were on target to be met due to workload priorities. For example the Fund had undergone a valuation this year and resources had needed to be allocated to this as a priority. However the performance of a number of KPIs were improving and processes were being looked at to see if efficiency could be improved further. Vicky Jenks said the timescales for the KPIs would be available in the annual report. The Chair expressed his concern at the low level of letters being sent that notified dependents of pensionable amounts, which was KPI 9 on the chart in the report appendix.

Regarding breaches, Vicky Jenks said there had been an ongoing  issue with the Birmingham Diocese Academy Trust. This was because it had not been possible to get the required information from them in a timely manner following a change of payroll provider. It was eventually progressed following a conversation with the Trust’s chief financial officer. Although six breaches were listed, these were all from the one employer who have 6 schools with in their Trust.. The Trust was now using iConnect and it was not anticipated there would be any issues in the future. Vicky Jenks said the use of iConnect had also been a contributory factor in the number of amber warnings reducing. The amber warnings would also generally be cleared at the end of each financial year once employers had completed their year end returns. However some breaches were being caused by the employer only having one employee responsilbe for submitting data to the fund and that person being unavailable.. There were no specific patterns to the breaches taking place that had been identified.

Regarding McCloud, Vicky Jenks said the response to the government consultation was still awaited. It was expected to be announced before Christmas. New draft regulations were expected to be in place by October 2023. Extra staff had been taken on to enable the Warwickshire Pension Fund to undertake the required checks to see how many people would be affected by the proposals. Pensioners who would be affected would be contacted, although Martin Griffiths (Technical Specialist, Pension Fund Policy and Governance) said the LGPS had indicated for Funds not to contact individuals who are not affected by McCloud.

Members were told there were no outstanding Internal disputes. Responses to two stage one cases had been issued; one has been  referred to the Ombudsman as itwas deemed to be out of time for the disputes process. . Both cases related to outgoing transfers, which had taken place in 2015.

Vicky Jenks said the team had worked hard to provide the actuary with all of the information needed for the valuation by the end of July, and the feedback showed that the actuary was impressed with the quality of the data. There had been a catchup meeting on this on 4 October, and there were due to be further discussions at the AGM on 4 November.

Members were told that it was now anticipated that the DWP’s pensions dashboard would go live for Warwickshire in September 2024. This would enable members to view all of their pensions in one place. Work was being undertaken by the Warwickshire Pension Fund to ensure the information going forward for inclusion on the dashboard was correct. The dashboard would be go live for all pension schemes from April 2024  

Alan Kidner asked if the information relating to PAS and the pensioner payroll should be shared with members, so they could have a clearer picture of what was happening . Andy Felton said he was not sure if the Fund had the ability to do this, as payroll for the Warwickshire Pension Fund is a service provided by WCC as a third party provider.. Vicky Jenks said the pensions and payroll team met on a quarterly basis to discuss any service issues.

Keith Francis said he was comfortable with the report, and the officers had made its contents very clear.

Members thanked officers and noted the contents of the report.