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Pension Committee |
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Date: |
18 November 2025 |
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By: |
Chief Finance Officer |
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Title: |
Communications Report |
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Purpose:
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This report provides an update on Fund Communications activities. |
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RECOMMENDATION:
The Pension Committee is recommended to note the communications updates detailed in this report.
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1. Background
1.1 This report is presented to the Pension Committee to provide an update on the Communications activity of the Fund.
1.2 The Fund has a Communication Strategy (updated in June 2025) which defines the main methods of communication provided for key stakeholders. This includes making the best use of technology where appropriate, to provide quicker and more efficient communications for the Fund's stakeholders. The Fund will ensure that communication methods are accessible to all.
Communications Update
2. Scheme Member training
2.1 The Communications team continue to work closely with the Employer Engagement team in putting together a booking process, promotion via Scheme employers, scripts, YouTube videos and sending out and collating feedback. The Employer Engagement team have completed all sessions in 2025. Over 1,100 active members attended a session this year with very positive feedback. The 3 sessions are: Introduction to LGPS, Your Pension MOT and Preparing for Retirement.
2.2 Training dates for 2026have been agreed and added to the website.
2.3 See Appendix 1 for overall training feedback for 2025.
3. East Sussex Pension Assistant(ESPA)
3.1 The Communications team have been heavily involved in pulling together a knowledge base of over 200 questions and answers to test as part of the new digital assistant, which will sit on designated pages of the website as an automated tool to support members.
The initial core testing is now complete and results are being analysed. Further exploratory testing has also now begun.
4. Employer Forum
4.1 The 2025 Employer Forum will take place on 13 November 2025, the agenda is attached at Appendix 2. To date there are approximately 78 registrations (including Fund staff).
5 East Sussex Pension Fund main website
5.1 The Communications team continues to check the website (including all PDF documents) to ensure it is up to date and accessibility guidelines are adhered to. The primary tool used to manage accessibility is ‘Silktide’ which is a web governance platform that helps improve website quality and user experience by finding and fixing issues related to accessibility, content, and marketing. A snapshot of the Silktide results (as of 14 October 2025) is shown below:
5.2 Website analytics data are detailed in Appendix 3.
6 Border to Coast Pensions Partnership pooling communications
6.1 The Communications team made a slight tweak to the ‘Border to Coast Pensions Partnership’ statement to reflect the current situation following a further press release they issued on 9 October 2025
6.2 Official statement on the website.
7 Annual Benefit Statements 2025
7.1 All communications (letters and/or emails) have been sent for the 2025 Annual Benefit Statement (ABS) exercise. This year there are 24 individual templates used which reflected members’ McCloud status (for example - if they do not qualify).
8 ‘My Pension’ - member self-service website
8.1 An updated version of the member self-service website, ‘My Pension’ went live in July 2024. The launch of this updated functionality is helping transform the way members access and engage with vital pension information online. The Fund will continue to promote ‘My Pension’ through newsletters, the website and through employers.
8.2 Several of the ABS communications issued in late August asked members to register for ‘My Pension’. The figures below include around 2,500 new registrations since that date. Shown below (as of 31 October 2025) are current registration levels (excluding electronic opt outs).
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Type of member |
On Engage (number) |
% registered for ‘My Pension’ |
Old MSS % registered |
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Contributing |
10976 |
51.83 |
51 |
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No longer contributing |
8570 |
39.03 |
46 |
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Pensioners |
8397 |
62.80 |
50 |
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Widow/dependant |
597 |
36.50 |
19 |
9 Pensions Awareness 2025
9.1 Pension Awareness Day, held annually in September, is the start of 3 days of activities dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of pension planning and saving for retirement. The Fund produced a webpage dedicated to promoting Pensions Awareness - Explore Pension Awareness webpage here
10 Additional Voluntary Contribution (Prudential) fund changes
10.1 Emails or letters were sent to all existing Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) holders to let them know about the change of default fund from With Profits to the Prudential Dynamic Growth Lifestyle strategy (targeting 100% Cash at retirement) for new members joining the AVC.
AVC holders were also made aware of other fund range changes.
Important information about your AVC investments | East Sussex Pension Fund
10.2 New Prudential Fund Guide - AVC Fund Guide - Prudential
11 Conclusion and reasons for recommendation
11.1 The Pension Committee is recommended to note the updates provided in the report.
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IAN GUTSELL Chief Finance Officer |
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Contact Officer: |
Susan Greenwood, Head of Pensions |
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Email: |
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