Issue - meetings

36.1       The Committee considered a report providing an update to the Pension Committee on matters relating to Pensions Administration activities.

36.2       The Committee’s discussion included the following key issues:

·         The Pensions Administration Team (PAT) has around 7-9 vacancies out of a Team of 35 Full Time Equivalent posts. The portion of the team focussed on business-as-usual work has only a couple of vacancies, with the majority of the vacancies falling in the project side of the team. The PAT had support from Surrey County Council, through the old Orbis arrangement up until the end of June but is now in the position of needing to outsource some one-off projects.. The vacancies have not affected the Team’s ability to deliver the Annual Benefit Statement (ABS) project and maintain service levels at the standard set out in its Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), however, the PAT is aware of the risks vacancies pose to the service and is very focussed on filling these posts by the end of the year.

·         East Sussex County Council (ESCC) needs a contract in place with Mercer in order for it to complete the Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) Reconciliation project. This is because Mercer’s existing contract was with Orbis, for the six local authorities Orbis provided pensions administration for, and Mercer cannot divulge scheme data to an ‘outside organisation’, which ESCC would be under the current contract. Mercer initially rejected ESCC’s standard contract and ESCC rejected Mercer’s, however, it is expected that agreement will be reached in the next few weeks.

·         The PAT queried around 2,500 points of member data sent through from employers during the most recent ABS, around 20% of data received, and went back with queries to around 60 employers.  It is expected that once all employers are on iConnect, there will be far fewer issues. There are also a number of employees listed on the system as casuals with no earning for the year who will be removed from the system before the next issuing of the ABS. The Pension Board and Committee will consider at the next meetings in November whether the fact 100% of ABS were not issued by the deadline constitutes a breach of regulations that needs to be reported to the Pensions Regulator.

36.3       The Committee RESOLVED to note the report.