Issue - meetings

29.1     The Board considered a report by the Chief Finance Officer introduced by Paul Punter, Head of Pensions Administration.

29.2        The following points were highlighted to the Board:

1)    The performance for quarter 2 showed an improvement from quarter 1 with June showing as the first green rated month and the July and August performance figures also showing improvement.

2)    There will be an influx in administrative tasks following the backdated local government pay award which is likely to affect the performance of the administration team.

3)    There are no staff vacancies in the Pension Administration team.

4)    The Helpdesk is due to be set up with a new call-centre technology.

5)    After the communication of the Annual Benefit Statements, the Helpdesk saw an influx of enquiries and over 60 transfer requests were received within one day.

6)    McCloud data needs to be loaded within the system this year and support from Heywood is ongoing regarding rectifying errors as data is loaded and reviewed.

7)    At the end of July 2025 most of the McCloud data was loaded into the system and data was provided to actuaries for the valuation (excluding and including McCloud).

8)    The McCloud underpin protection was turned on in August 2025 and had an impact of running through every record to try and create a McCloud underpin where one exists or where someone is eligible. Any change in status can no longer be done without McCloud where McCloud applies.

9)    The Annual Benefit Statements were run in August and a review of how the underpin had affected the statements was conducted looking at any underpin greater than £1,000 and greater than 20% change due to the underpin.

10) Annual Benefit Statements had to include the McCloud data which was broken down into 4 McCloud categories.

11) For active and deferred, 99.13% of Annual Benefit Statements were issued and the remaining will be issued over the next month.

12) McCloud Category 3 tells the member that they are in scope however they have not been assessed to determine if their pension is protected by the underpin. There are 400 active members and 233 deferred members in that position and therefore has been logged as a breach.

13) Backdated calculations for deaths and retirements in scope regarding the underpin are being undertaken following training of the team and will be completed by the statutory deadline of 31 August 2026.

14) The Pension Dashboard is on track for the statutory deadline of 31 October 2025.

15) The Annual Allowance is on track to be completed by the end of October and there are only 8 employers the administration team are actively seeking data from.

16) With regard to the review of the AVC funds, the last member who was in the index-linked fund has self-selected to move the assets to equity fund meaning there are now no remaining assts in the index-linked fund.

17) Work is ongoing with Barnett Waddingham to draft communications for all Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVC)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29