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 added 2 appendices to this report.

This report updated the Pensions Board on various pensions administration matters as part of its remit to oversee the administration of the Brent Pension Fund. As Members would recall, Council transferred the pensions administration to LPPA. The Board welcomed Mr John Crowhurst (Commercial Director) and Ms Janet Morville-Smith (Risk and Compliance Director) of LPPA to the meeting.

Mr John Crowhurst gave a detailed slide presentation to the Board highlighting the key aspects of pension administration by LPPA since the last meeting and answered Members’ questions. Members heard that the percentage of calls answered was 98.3% and that all cases including deaths and retirements was 99.1% against the target of 98%. Through a rigorous trace and trace approach, LPPA had been able to bring to a close historic cases that had been pending for some time.  He added however, that bereavement and retirement cases had seen a steady rise in January and February 2021 and consequently the wait times at the help desk.  Additionally, LPPA had delivered service improvements that involved the launch of the new LPPA website including a live chat functionality for users, successful delivery of online training sessions for employers and the launch of the bereavement booklet.

In providing the business updates, Mr Crowhurst stated that LPPA had recently been through a procurement exercise for their pension administration system and contracts signed with Civica to provide their Universal Pensions Management (UPM) system. The UPM system would replace Altair as well as LPP's workflow management system (CMS), both YourFund employer portals and the My Pension Online member self-service portal. The Brent Pension Fund would Go Live in September 2022. The transfer of the service from Heywood's to Civica while having many benefits would also involve risks that would be monitored regularly by LPPA through their Project Plan capturing key dates, task, milestones, risks and controls in place. LPPA would provide Brent officers with regular updates in weekly and monthly meetings to ensure successful transfer of administrative systems. The Chairs expressed the Board’s view that a smooth transfer between the systems was vital.

In response to Members’ questions, Mr Crowhurst stated that conditional data would be significantly improved when LPPA concluded the GNP projects.  He clarified that bereavement cases had shot up by 27% in February 2021 and to address that, LPPA had set up a separate bereavement line and recruited additional staff for resilience and resource planning.  Divorce cases were also higher than normal months but that could be the same people contacting LPPA more than once.

Mr Ravinder Jassar (Deputy Director of Finance) added that due to the pandemic, the annual employer forum had not been held, however that LPPA were carrying out online engagement activity with all employers ahead of year-end.

Ms Janet Morville-Smith (Head of Risk and Compliance) provided further perspectives on risk and compliance and answered Members’ questions.  The objectives were to drive quality by embedding a culture of treating customers fairly and enhancing the administration of services provided to all clients and thus improve customer journey and provide value for money service. These would be achieved through monitoring quality assurance reviews with a more focussed deep dive approach and a team of regulatory change management to monitor risks, policy framework, breach and incident and complaints and member satisfaction.  She clarified that LPPA would put in place, appropriate infrastructure and procedures with constant reviews to address potential cyber security issues.

The Board welcomed the report and with no further issues raised, the Chair confirmed that all members had followed the discussions and thanked members and officers for their contribution.  It was RESOLVED:

That the pensions administration updates be noted.