Issue - meetings

Pension Administration/Communications Update

Meeting: 13/06/2018 - Clwyd Pension Fund Committee (Item 9)

9 Pension Administration/Communications Update pdf icon PDF 126 KB

To update Committee Members on administration and communication matters for the Clwyd Pension Fund and to agree changes to the Fund Business Plan relating to the workforce review.

Additional documents:

Decision:

(a)        The Committee considered the update and provided comments;

 

(b)        That the Workforce Review which was intended for quarter 4 and 2019/20 is brought forward to commence in quarter 2 2018/19 and

 

(c)        That the Committee approved that the Chair, the Chief Executive  and  the Corporate Finance Manager under delegation approve further staffing resources upon receipt of a more detailed business case.

 

Minutes:

The Chairman announced in Mrs Burnham’s absence, Mrs Beales and Mrs Robinson will update the Committee on this item of the agenda. Mrs Beales noted that there has been a positive improvement in KPI’s and improvements on the take up of Member Self-Service (MSS) but there are still some underlying issues affecting the turnaround times of services.

Mrs Beales gave the business plan update. With recent changes to the amendment regulations, the administration team have had an increase in their workloads such as the ability for deferred members to access benefits from age 55. This has resulted in members requesting estimated value of their benefits earlier than was previously the case.

Mrs Robinson stated that, due to these changes and the ongoing challenges with the overall quantity of work, the administration team are developing a full business case to review the team structure, including the number of staff.  The business case will highlight the increased volume of work including due to the much increased complexities in the CARE scheme.  The team acknowledge there are and will continue to be challenges due to difficulties in recruitment and training new members of staff. Accordingly external help on a project by project basis much like the work currently being done by Mercer is expected to be needed for some time.

Mrs Robinson added the following key examples of additional projects or changes, some of which are introducing efficiencies;

  • The Fund is working towards HMRC deadlines in regards to the GMP reconciliation.
  • All of the literature has been reviewed for GDPR compliance.
  • The administration team reviewed every case since 2008 to identify if each member has a partner that is entitled (but hasn’t yet been nominated) for the member’s pension. If so, it is required for the Fund to contact the individual and let them know that there may be a pension available for them.
  • Electronic benefit statements have been a success. The annual benefit statements are on target to go out at the end of August.
  • A trivial commutation exercise will result in less work and create efficiencies since the Fund pays out a small lump sum amount.  This project will commence for historic cases once it has been decided how it will resourced.

The Chairman thanked both Mrs Robinson and Mrs Beales for their work and their update on this item on the agenda and commented that it was clear that additional resources will be required.

RESOLVED:

 

(a)        The Committee considered the update and provided comments;

 

(b)        That the Workforce Review which was intended for quarter 4 and 2019/20 is brought forward to commence in quarter 2 2018/19 and

 

(c)        That the Committee approved that the Chair, the Chief Executive  and  the Corporate Finance Manager under delegation approve further staffing resources upon receipt of a more detailed business case.