Appendix 6

East Sussex County Council - Decision Report

Annual Benefits Statements – 325 casual workers

Background

The options for treatment of casuals were discussed at the last Pension Board and Pension Committee – see Appendix 4.

Options

View A from Surrey CC:

Active members with no earnings cause an error and no ABS can be produced. Options proposed:
(i) Input the salary as £1 and this will allow a statement to be produced – approach used historically
(ii) Change their status to 2 and request a leaver form, saying £0 salary can’t stay in but can re-join if earnings recommence
(iii) Leave as active, recognising they have a contract of employment that has not been terminated & send letter saying can’t have a statement

View B from The Royal county of Berkshire Pension Fund

Head of Pensions advised Active members with no earnings CAN still have an ABS produced.

View C from Southern Area Pension Officers Group (SAPOG)

At SAPOG meeting on 30/09/20, two Authorities said their approach was to add £0.01 to the contributions and roll forward the pensionable salary from the previous year. They recognised the employer has a contract of employment and Authorities are not able to break that. Both LAs do produce ABS for casual workers. No one else challenged the view presented (and there were reps from Berks, Bucks, Hamp, Isle of Wight, Oxford, Surrey, West Sussex plus guests from LGA and MHCLG).  

View D from Heywood

The Altair 9.1 Release Guide - section 11.4.1 - explains how to produce Annual Benefit Statements for Non-Casual members who do not have CARE Pay at the relevant date. It also mentions that the same change was made in the Altair 8.1 Release for Casual members, but that release guide failed to mention this - it was due to an update for a problem. Heywood confirmed ABS can be produced for members with no pay.

Timing of Decision

Orbis Pension Administration is looking to do a sweep-up of cases where data was received or corrected post 31/08/20. To get the decision included, it would need to come in by 23/10/20; this will allow sufficient time to get the data sorted the week after that and run the final batch of members in the week commencing 02/11/20, with a summary report produced thereafter.