Agenda item

This report updates the Pensions Board on various pensions administration matters as part of its remit to oversee the administration of the Brent Pension Fund.

I have attached 2 appendices to the report.

This report updated the Pensions Board on various pensions administration matters as part of the Board’s remit to oversee the administration of the Brent Pension Fund.  With reference to the tables within the report, John Crowhurst (Operations Director, LPP) informed the Board about the following salient points;

Administration

·         The percentage of cases completed on time had remained high with an average of 99.1% of cases being completed on time in June.

·         Further details provided in the report showed that overall 85% of the 348 cases completed on time were completed early.

Covid-19

In line with government guidance, the pension administration team were considered key workers as they were ‘delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits.  The Pensions Team both LPP and Brent staff have adapted successfully to working from home and all had been encouraged to use web-based channels and email where possible, for non-urgent queries.  In line with the guidance issued by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that administrators focussed their activities on making sure they deliver critical processes, LPP had been prioritising payment to existing pensioners, processing new benefit cases and dealing with bereavement cases.

Annual Benefit Statements.

At the time of dispatch of this report, eight employers which represent 6% of active members in the Fund had not submitted their end of year return. Officers contacted senior management at these employers to ensure that these returns were received promptly and to date all year returns had been received.

Data Cleanse and GAD Valuation

The first phase of the project was completed ahead of submission of membership data for the 2019 triennial valuation.  The Fund submitted the data to the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) in October 2019 and cost cap assessment at 31 March 2020. Ahead of the September 2020 submission, the Fund was carrying out a focussed exercise with a view to clearing a large proportion of the backlog of cases.

Record Keeping Plan (RKP)

The Fund’s Record Keeping Plan (RKP) formally documents the actions being taken to review and address the data issues facing the Fund.  The RKP was being updated to reflect phase two of the data cleanse project incorporating new activities undertaken including GAD data collection exercise and the tracing of pensioner addresses. The new RKP will be presented to the board at the next meeting.

Internal Audit

During the audit, internal audit identified a number of examples of good practice but no issues of high risk. There were two each of low risk issues and medium risk issues (Terms of Reference for the Pension Fund Sub Committee and vacant posts within the two governing bodies and Absence of a skills matrix for members). In order to address this, recruitment for two vacant posts had commenced and officers had received two expressions of interest to serve as an interview panel member.  Mr Ravinder Jassar (Head of Finance) sought a third member and asked that expressions of interest be sent to him for consideration. The Head of Finance also outlined further measures to address the absence of skills matrix.   Overall, the scheme manager was pleased with the outcome of this audit and actions taken to address some of the issues identified.

With no further issues to be raised, the Chair thanked all officers for the updates and it was;

RESOLVED:

That the position in relation to annual benefit statements the actions taken by the scheme manager against employers who do not comply with the Pensions Administration Strategy be noted.