Issue - meetings

Purpose:  To update Committee Members on administration and communication matters for the Clwyd Pension Fund.

(a)          The Committee considered the update and provided any comments.

(b)          The Committee approved the change in timescales to the business plan as outlined in paragraph 1.01.

(c)          The Committee approved the proposed response to the £95k exit cap consultation as attached in Appendix 7.

Mrs Williams presented this report and started by highlighting it is a busy time of year for the Fund because of the actuarial valuation. On page 351, she highlighted the change in timescales in item A3 for under and overpayments to the members. The delays in this are primarily due to the GMP reconciliation exercise as this affects the calculations.

Mrs Williams explained she has been involved in the LGPS National Framework for the provision of administration software providers, as well as being involved in the administration benchmarking review with CIPFA. For the benchmarking review, the Fund have taken on board how KPI’s are implemented. Mr Everett added that whilst the KPI requirements are important, he emphasised that there has to be some professional judgement on decisions made when utilising resources.

Mrs McWilliam noted the following points;

-       The communications team is already working on the points highlighted by the customer satisfaction survey.

-       Despite pressures including the valuation and data cleansing, the team have still managed to complete day to day responsibilities.

-       The new staff are still undergoing training.

Overall, given the pressures it has been a good performance from the team.

The Chairman and Mr Everett congratulated Mrs Williams on her new role as Pensions Administration Manager.

            Cllr Williams queried whether there have been any updates on iConnect for Wrexham CBC. Mrs Williams stated that the team have been heavily involved in the year-end exercise and member benefit statements, therefore the focus on iConnect for Wrexham CBC will be around September.

Cllr Bateman questioned whether there was any update on Project Apple. Mrs Williams said that there is a separate item for this but she confirmed that Project Apple is completed.

            Mr Middleman covered the recent HM Treasury consultation response and reminded the Committee what the £95k exit cap is and the importance of it from a policy perspective. The £95k exit cap is the maximum severance payment for members (including direct cash payment and the cost of accessing pension benefits early) who leave public sector employment.  LGPS members are entitled to take their unreduced benefits immediately at age 55 on the grounds of redundancy.

            Mr Middleman referred back to Mr Hibbert’s question from an earlier item on who the Regulations apply to. He ran through some of the exemptions from page 368 highlighting the middle of the page where it outlines who is covered by the Regulations i.e. local authorities, Civil Service and the NHS etc. In summary the Regulations will apply in both Wales and England but it currently won’t apply in Scotland.  It also would not apply to Higher and Further Education employers so in that sense there would be different treatment within the LGPS by employer which complicates matters also.  However, he then referred to the discretionary power to relax the cap and highlighted the bottom of 373 which shows some of the restrictions and explained this would provide some flexibility as to if the requirements were applied within Wales.

The draft response  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10