Issue - meetings

40.1     The Committee considered a report providing an update on the Annual Benefit Statement exercise carried out by Business Operations on behalf of the East Sussex Pension Fund.

40.2     The Committee RESOLVED to:

1) note the report; and

2) request to consider the report due for consideration by the Pension Board on the lessons learned from the 16/17 Annual Benefit Statement exercise; and

3) to request that the report identifies process changes for the 2018 Annual Benefit Statement exercise in order to be assured that sufficient changes have been made.

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35.1.      The Board considered a report providing an update on the Annual Benefit Statement.

35.2.      JB explained that 480 of the employees who had yet received their statements were new employees of Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) who had joined in the previous year and who Orbis did not receive information about in time but this had since been resolved. The amount that they will have accrued will be minimal, but they will receive their statements shortly.

35.3.      JB explained that there were22,500 deferred members for whom a statement had been issued but there are more than 26,000 in existence, with the difference being those who moved without informing the East Sussex Pension Fund (ESPF) about their new address. This would have built up over 20 years or more as, until now, pro-active steps had only been taken to trace deferred members when their benefits were due for payment. Business Operations was now engaging a screening company to  trace down the likely addresses of these deferred members as they are aware this is likely to be an area of future interest to the Pensions Regulator.

35.4.      BC asked what will be done differently to ensure that the Annual Benefit Statement deadline will be achieved next year. JB said that a more robust plan is in place to meet next year’s 31 August 2017 deadline. This includes a publishing the Statements between May and the end of July in phases, which is possible because of the new online system; a more robust  approach to be taken with employers who fail to make their submissions by the end of April;  employers will be offered support to  assist with producing their reports.

35.5.      SO asked how the sent rate of 93% of statements compared to other local authorities. JB said that a large number of other pension funds had reported breaches of the statutory deadline and that the sent rate for East Sussex was similar to elsewhere.

35.6.      The Board RESOLVED to:

1) note the report; and

2) request a report for the 8 February meeting on what lessons have been learned from the production of Annual Benefit Statements for 2017 and what will be done next year to meet the deadline in full.