Issue - meetings

The Committee noted the update.

Mrs Williams highlighted this item of the agenda was for note and talked through the following key points.

-       The team were busy with business as usual, the McCloud programme, national pension board dashboard preparation and the re-calculation of member benefits as a result of the retrospective 2021/22 pay award.

-       The resource issues were outlined in paragraph 2.01 which detailed the number of vacancies the Fund had available and any appointments made. Since the paper was drafted, the Fund had met with HR advisors and were in the process of improving the job advert wording to try to better attract candidates. For example, this included changes to job titles to incorporate the word “administration” so it would be highlighted on more job searches. The adverts were due to go live in the next few weeks.

            Cllr Hughes asked whether the Fund had thought about hiring an apprentice. Mrs Williams confirmed that the Fund currently had two apprentices already, so no more were taken on this year as the current focus was on recruiting more experienced team members.

            Mrs Williams then presented training slides regarding the national pensions dashboard and highlighted the following:

-       The development of the national pensions dashboard applies to all pension schemes (not just the LGPS) but the session focused on how it affected the Clwyd Pension Fund.

-       The dashboard project is being run by the Department of Work and Pensions; it will allow individuals to access all of their pension schemes’ information in one place to help plan for retirement and increase engagement. It is designed for members who have not yet retired (active and deferred members) - not for pensioners.

-       The Pensions Regulator, Department of Work and Pensions, HM Treasury, the FCA, dashboard system providers, scheme managers and administration software providers all need to work together on this project in order for it to be delivered on time.

-       The requirements are being set out in legislation compelling schemes to provide information through a dashboard. Hence the Fund was required to prepare data to connect to the pensions dashboards eco-system.

-       Non-retired members would have access to pension arrangement details, employment details, accrued pension and estimated retirement income. However, limitations within this dashboard were expected so Mrs Williams was keen to promote the Fund’s Member Self Service as this increased engagement directly with members.

-       All public sector schemes are required to be onboarded to the pension dashboard infrastructure by September 2024, albeit this did not mean members would get access by September 2024. The date for going live is  expected to be around the end of 2024.

-       Also one element of data, called value data, did not need to be provided until April 2025, because of the ongoing work on the McCloud programme meaning this information may not be ready by September 2024.

-       Once the pensions dashboard goes live, a member would log onto the dashboard, verify their information and the details would be sent to the Pensions Finder  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17