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Report to: |
Pension Board |
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Date of meeting: |
5 June 2025 |
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By: |
Chief Finance Officer |
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Title: |
Pension Administration - updates |
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Purpose: |
To provide an update to the Pension Board on matters relating to Pensions Administration activities.
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RECOMMENDATION: The Board is recommended to note
the updates and make any comments for feedback to the Pension
Committee. |
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1. Background
1.1 The in-house Pensions Administration Team (PAT) carries out the operational, day-to-day tasks on behalf of the members and employers of the East Sussex Pension Fund (the Fund, ESPF) and for the Administering Authority. They also lead on topical administration activities, projects and improvements that may have an impact on members of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
2. Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
2.1
The Performance Reports for the months of
January, February and March 2025 can be found at Appendices 1 to
3. The report now includes all tasks performed by the PAT and
is reported directly from the Altair Insights system. A summary is
included in the table below:
|
Month |
o/s* at start |
Post received |
Post completed |
Completed in SLA** |
% within SLA |
Outside SLA** |
Total o/s* at end |
Open tasks at end |
|
Oct 24 |
2,549 |
2,347 |
2,518 |
2,015 |
80.0% |
503 |
2,341 |
707 |
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Nov 24 |
2,090 |
2,015 |
1,963 |
1,596 |
81.3% |
367 |
2,080 |
423 |
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Dec 24 |
1,919 |
1,541 |
1,522 |
1,360 |
89.4% |
162 |
1,892 |
398 |
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Q4, 24 |
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5,903 |
6,003 |
4,971 |
82.8% |
1,032 |
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Jan 25 |
1,719 |
3,126 |
2,279 |
2,078 |
91.2% |
201 |
1,892 |
1,069 |
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Feb 25 |
2,372 |
2,368 |
2,148 |
1,793 |
83.5% |
355 |
2,557 |
1,034 |
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Mar 25 |
2,283 |
2,364 |
2,355 |
1,977 |
83.9% |
378 |
2,251 |
740 |
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Q1, 25 |
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7,858 |
6,782 |
5,848 |
86.2% |
934 |
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*o/s = outstanding **SLA = Service Level Agreement
2.2 The main reasons for the
increase in tasks include a move from reporting on just KPIs to
reporting on all PAT tasks. In addition, fully utilising the
i-Connect system results in many more recalculations (both due to
late payments of pay [overtime/holiday] and late pay awards) plus
the Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) bulk data
files.
2.3 On 27 March 2025 the Admin Working Group were provided with both a history of the average and longest day data for the period August 2024 to February 2025, and commentary about all cases that missed the SLA during December 2024. There remain some ongoing issues with PAT staff not setting up the ‘reply due’ and ‘radio’ buttons correctly. A further training session was provided on 13 March 2025 so further improvements are expected going forward.
2.5
The Fund aims to achieve a gold standard service provision for the
Pensions Helpdesk and the results for January to March 2025 are
included in Appendix 5. From April 2024 the Helpdesk has been
delivered by an in-house team within PAT. Due to the transition
into an in-house team the reportable information relating to
service delivery has reduced. The roll
out of the East Sussex County Council (ESCC) telephony upgrade was
completed mid-May 2025. As a result, the helpdesk has access to
call centre technology so from July 2025 will again review the
Management I data available.
3.
Pension Administration Staffing Update
3.1 There have been 2 resignations since the last meeting. An Apprentice left on 1 May 2025 and the temporary Administrator is leaving earlier than planned on 31 May 2025.
4. Projects update
McCloud remedy
4.1
The data collection aspect for the 140 active employers is complete
and the data has been uploaded into the Altair test system. The
final data validation has unearthed several new issues and errors,
and these have been investigated and are not easily resolved. In
the main bulk, solutions are not possible (examples are duplicate
lines, overlapping and gaps in dates, American date formatting,
concurrent combining cases). These are being corrected where
possible, but some are likely to be excluded for now. Once resolved
the data will be moved into the live system. The McCloud data
(where loaded) will be accounted for in the 2025 Annual Benefit
Statement (ABS).
4.2 The data for 37 non-active
employers has been through the Heywood validation tool and is back
with officers to manage and resolve the queries found. These
changes will not be made by 2025 Annual Benefit Statement.
4.3 Heywood is working closely
with the CLASS Group to prioritise the McCloud functionality, which
could take up to 2 years to fully implement.
4.4
Heywood are the Fund’s Integrated Service Provider, and a
project plan has been created, with a 2-phase approach pencilled
in:
Phase 1 – created the
Integrated Service Providers (ISP) data console and data transfer
tested. Additional testing of the “view” data completed
and the “find” data being assessed in May 2025. In June
we will be documenting the how to resolve a “partial”
match procedure
Phase 2 – starting in August 2025 for 5 weeks to implement and onboard before 31 October 2025.
4.5 Officers are looking to
create a new Prudential Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC)
data screen on Altair to hold the annual data that can be submitted
to the ISP via a single source.
4.6 A training session for
Pension Board and Pension Committee members has been arranged for
16 September 2025.
4.7
Onboarding date – all schemes must onboard by 31 October
2026, but it is not yet known when the pension dashboards will go
live to the public.
i-Connect onboarding
4.8 Officers had targeted the last 10 employers (who had historically had data issues or been less engaging) to be onboarded ahead of the 2025 ABS. All have had their initial meetings, discussions about the Fund’s specifications and requirements and new payroll extract files built. Officers are actively engaging with the employers and their payroll software providers to create and review tests files ready for onboarding:
|
Employer |
No. of active members |
Test File received |
Project RAG Status |
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Aquinas Trust |
41 |
29/10/24 |
onboarded |
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Bexhill College |
97 |
25/07/24 |
Reviewed Feb file, awaiting March |
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Beacon Academy |
77 |
04/03/25 |
Jan test file rec’d 30/03/25 – maybe EOY |
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Uplands |
52 |
04/03/25 |
Jan test file rec’d 30/03/25 – maybe EOY |
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SABDEN |
117 |
20/12/24 |
onboarded |
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Varndean College |
97 |
05/11/24 |
End of Year return received |
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UoBAT |
478 |
17/01/25 |
onboarded |
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Uni of Brighton |
1,304 |
06/12/24 |
onboarded |
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Hailsham Academy |
126 |
13/01/25 |
Received Mar 2025 file but Feb issues remain |
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DCAT |
464 |
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End of Year return received |
4.9
There are a number of employers who changed their payroll software
providers before 31 March 2025 where the new provider needs to be
onboarded:
|
Employer |
No. of active members |
Date of change |
Project RAG Status |
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TKAT |
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01/09/24 |
Onboarding call booked with Mar 2025 data |
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Gildredge House |
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01/02/25 |
Reviewed Feb file, awaiting March |
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Benfield Primary Sch |
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01/09/24 |
EOY return received – Strictly Education |
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Hangleton Prim Sch |
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01/09/24 |
EOY return received – Strictly Education |
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Robertsbridge |
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01/01/25 |
EOY return received – EPM for 12 months |
4.10 There
is one employer (Varndean School) with resourcing issues who have
not uploaded files since September 2024. Officers are looking to
jump to March 2025 (status red).
4.11 In addition, there are some potential
employers yet to be admitted whose members’ date of joining
could be backdated before 1 April
2025.
BHCC i-Connect data
collection
4.12
Officers are pleased to advise that the bulk i-Connect data file
for the period June to December 2024 was successfully uploaded on 9
January 2025 with a small number of omitted members. The file
produced an equally small number of errors and suppressions as well
as creating 1,056 i-Starter tasks and 1,091 i-Leaver tasks. The PAT
will look to process the last 150 backlog of aggregation tasks in
May and June 2025.
4.13 The BHCC payroll team have uploaded their March 2025 i-Connect data file in April 2025, effectively making the employer up-to-date and live. The Pensions Regulator have closed their case.
Pension increases as at 1 April
2025
4.14
Officers have completed the pension increase routine using the
Consumer Price Index (CPI) figure of 1.7% (based on September 2024
inflation index).
Pension Administration Software
contract
4.15 The
Pension Committee authorised the Chief Finance Officer to complete
the appropriate due diligence to award the contract. The award was
made on 23 January 2025 and the contract sealed by ESCC Legal team
on 25 April 2025.
4.16 The contract will start on 28 April
2026 for a 5-year term, with an option to extend up to 26 April
2034.
Data Quality
4.17 Officers continue to monitor various data quality reports using Altair Insight reports. The current priority is the data quality for the 2025 Actuarial Valuation. Below is the table of Barnett Waddingham (BW) errors based on the 2024 data:
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4.18 Officers aim to provide the final 2025 data to BW by July 2025.
5 Conclusion and reasons for recommendation.
5.1
The Pension Board is recommended to note the report and make any
comments for feedback to the Pension Committee.
IAN GUTSELL
Chief Finance Officer
Contact Officer:
Paul Punter, Head of Pensions Administration
Email:
paul.punter@eastsussex.gov.uk