Agenda item

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

Prior to commencing consideration of the item, the chair advised that he intended to allow a short pause in proceedings at 6:20pm to enable those members observing Ramadan to break for Iftar.

John Smith (Pensions Manager, Brent Council) was then invited to introduce the report, which updated the Pension Board on various pensions’ administration matters as part of its remit to oversee the administration of the Brent Pension Fund.

The Board was advised that the update included a review of performance against agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Q3 (October – December 24) with a brief overview provided on Fund membership, which as of 31 December 24 comprised 6,548 active members, 10,171 deferred members and 7,625 pensioner and dependant members.  The Board’s attention was drawn to the maturing nature of the age demographic for Fund Members with 57% of working age members over 45 and 50% of the 35-60 age cohort for deferred members being over 50.

In focussing on overall performance during Q3 the Board was advised that this remained high overall with 98.2% of all case types being processed, meeting contractual SLA targets as detailed in section 3.4.6 of the cover report.  The Fund’s perception was that the service was gradually improving, with it noted that only retirements from deferred status (94.1%), had fallen below SLA (95%) and Figure 2 in the cover report providing detail on the number of cases that had been processed grouped by category.  Members also noted the Case Work Performance table, within section 3.4.8 of the cover report which compared number of cases completed to the number of cases received and was felt to provide a more complete overview of performance.

Following introduction of the report, the Chair welcomed Emma Hebblethwaite from LPPA, the Council’s administration service provider, who provided a further detailed update regarding recent pensions administration performance, summarised below:

• Members were informed that overall operational casework performance remained positive for Q3, with a performance average of 98.2% against SLAs with a more detailed outline provided on the Case Work Performance table and fluctuations in case work being received over the year as a result of various triggers including regulatory and statutory deadlines during relevant reporting periods and the monthly data return process, new joiners, payment queries and deferrals.  Clarification was provided that the volume of outstanding casework shown reflected all ongoing work in the system (as opposed to any backlog), including cases on hold awaiting information, with confirmation provided that casework performance had met the 95% SLA target with the exception of a small number of retirement from deferred status and the positive trend continuing for the current monitoring quarter.

• In terms of LPPA contact centre calls performance, the average wait time had consistently been under the target of 4 minutes, with an average wait time over Q3 of 2 minutes 30 seconds and members being advised of the high volume of calls which continued to be received.

·       Progress continued to be made in terms of scheme member registrations to the Pension Point online Portal.  While the average level of new registrations per month had been approx.100 December had seen an above average increase of approx. 300, predominantly as a result of scheme members seeking to access payslips reflecting work on the payroll migration and with engagement remaining positive.

·       In terms of Customer Satisfaction scores, members were reminded that Contact Centre satisfaction now included overall satisfaction scores as well as for the individual call handlers, which was typically higher than the overall score, with scores for Q3 at 95.6% and 78.5% respectively and customer feedback subject to ongoing monitoring to support staff development and training.  The Q3 Administration report had also included satisfaction scores for retirements, although it was noted that these scores had been impacted by a majority of those surveyed not having responded with low response rates increasing volatility.  Of those who had responded customer satisfaction was 71.4% for actives into retirement and 59.1% for deferred into payment with a key issue highlighted as timing of payments.

·       Regarding complaints, members were informed that numbers remained on a downward trend with 9 new cases having been received since the last Board meeting, representing a rate of 3 per month.  Two stage one Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (“IDRP”) cases had been received during the monitoring period with both subsequently having been determined.  Whilst action continued to be taken to ensure IDRP cases were resolved as quickly as possible the complex nature of some cases meant that it was not always possible to resolve these quickly, with each case also supported by a root cause analysis following completion to ensure any lessons were learnt and, if necessary, processes and procedures were amended.  The Board was advised that there were currently four open complaint cases involving Brent scheme members of which two were identified as new.

·       In terms of LPPA Project updates the Board noted the progress being made in relation to the Efficiency and Service Improvement Program (ESIP) following the transition to the new Pension Administration System which members were advised had been focussed on delivering automation and improved self-service capability.  This included 9 projects in flight with the automation of Deferred Retirement Quote having been launched in July and work underway on similar functionality for active members including the development of online retirement forms (available to access through PensionPoint).  Other activity included work to improve the monthly returns process and the member and employer online portals.

As part of the update, the opportunity was taken to update the Board on the detailed work being undertaken in relation to the retirement journey focussed across four key areas – Leaver notification process; quotation stage; scheme member forms and finally the payment stage and positive feedback in relation to customer satisfaction at the improvements in the secure automation process and support being developed for scheme members, which it was confirmed would still include a paper option for those who had opted out of digital communication.  The completed process would allow scheme members to receive automated quotes, complete online forms, and receive payment with minimal manual intervention.

At this stage in proceedings the Chair advised that he intended to pause the meeting (as referred to at the start of the item) for a period of 15 minutes to enable those members observing Ramadan to break for Iftar.  The meeting was therefore paused at 6.20pm and resumed at 6:35pm.

Continuing from where she had paused, Emma Hebblethwaite also made reference to the work being undertaken in partnership with Civica and Intellica on a data project to improve data quality ahead of valuation and the introduction of the Pensions Dashboard with the creation of test environments now complete and Data Validation Checks being used to check the integrity of member data having also been scoped and built and the results due to be shared with Funds once available.  The project would include the production of a series of dashboards to provide clear visibility of the integrity and accuracy of the data held to comply with regulatory change and enable the launch of further self-service and automation for members and employers

Following the update, the Chair invited questions from Board members, with questions and responses summarised below:

• Details were sought on progress with the Pension Payroll migration process, which Emma Hebblethwaite advised was now nearing completion with LPPA having run their first Brent Pensions Payroll on 31^st January 2025 and the first single payments (for retirement lump sums, death grants, refunds etc.) completed on 20 January 2025.

• Clarification was sought on the governance checks being developed to provide the necessary level of assurance in relation to security measures being included as part of the automation of  processes being developed.  In response, Emma Hebblethwaite advised that the development of each process was subject to final sign off by a project management team prior to “go live” in order to provide comprehensive assurance and validation that the necessary operational and security checks had been completed with sign off also required from the risk and compliance team.

• Further assurance was also sought on the work being undertaken to ensure that the necessary reminders were issued to employees in terms of the notice they would be required to provide employers prior to retirement to enable any break in payment to be avoided. In recognition of the concern highlighted, Emma Hebblethwaite outlined the support available which members were advised included an employer toolkit to support them, along with staff, through the process ensuring necessary deadlines were achieved.  This was supplemented by monthly online webinars for members planning retirement with LPPA also working to make the notification process as simple as possible.  Noting the fluctuations in terms of performance the role of the employer as well as employees in ensuring the necessary stages in the notification and referral process were completed on time was also highlighted.

Turning the Board's attention to the final part of the update, John Smith (Pension Manager, Brent Council), then moved on to update members on progress with the migration of Brent’s current in-house pensions payroll to LPPA’s UPM system, which had been agreed by the Council’s General Purposes Committee in April 2024.  In terms of progress, the Board was advised that data cuts 2 and 3, together with parallel runs 2 and 3 had successful been completed in October and November 2024.  The November parallel run had identified that 99.82% of the gross and net pay totals balanced within tolerance with issues in relation to the remaining 0.18% (13 records) having been reviewed and relevant changes made in response.  As previously reported by Emma Hebblethwaite, this had enabled LPPA to successfully run their first Brent Pensions Payroll on 31^st January 2025 with the first single payments (for retirement lump sums, death grants, refunds etc.) being completed on 20 January 2025 and variations all being within normal tolerances.  Further consideration was now being given to the seamless integration of the Pensions Increase run in April 25 with the ongoing data cleanses, with communication material for members pre and post migration having also been issued along with the General Ledger reporting requirements for the monthly payroll and requirements for single payments also having been signed off, deployed and subject to ongoing refinement.  HMRC had now set-up of a new PAYE reference for the pension fund with NatWest having also provided a new BACS service user number.  The Board was advised that the migration of system was now essentially complete with officers now in the process of commissioning a post-migration data cleanse to ensure that the pension record on the UPM system and the pension in payment were correctly aligned.

The Board was also advised on progress being made in relation to the McCloud remedy with the project currently flagged red to reflect the absence of delivery dates for overdue software from Civica.  The Board was advised that LPPA had placed eligibility flags on all records that had been identified as being within scope for the remedy which had included applying the underpin and calculating benefits for active members retiring with an eligibility flag, and whose data had been verified as being correct.  The Board noted the underpin had been calculated for 18 Brent cases, and had proved beneficial in three of them with the average increase in annual pension for Brent cases that qualified being £315, compared to £290 for LPPA clients as a whole.  As an update on the concerns highlighted regarding the progress being made by Civica in being able to confirm the release dates for the next milestones towards McCloud compliance, Emma Hebblethwaite advised of recent progress with a number of system deliverables having been released and expectations that the remaining components required to support preparation of the Annual Benefit Statements were now anticipated by May 2025.  LPPA  remained in regular contact with Civica given the route to compliance would depend on Civica agreeing a timetable for implementing the outstanding tranches of software.  In noting the update, members welcomed the progress being made to address the concerns identified.

As a final update, the Board was advised that work was progressing well on the transition to the Pension Dashboard which all Public sector schemes were required to connect to by 31 October 2025.  LPPA had a dedicated project manager in place with a current focus on systems requirement (including the rules for partial matching of records and the treatment of AVCs) and business readiness, including dealing with new enquiries relating to dashboard.

In thanking Emma Hebblethwaite and John Smith for the update, the Chair commended the progress outlined and with no further comments it was RESOLVED that the report be noted.