Issue - meetings

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

69.2     The following points were highlighted to the Board:

1)    The Service Level Agreements for quarter 3 have improved to 95.8% and performance has shown a green every month since June 2025.

2)    The majority of the Key Performance Indicators show as green however Transfer In and Out activity remains as red.

3)    The Helpdesk Key Performance Indicators will need to be reviewed to reflect the different level of work expected of the Helpdesk staff as simple enquiries have decreased following the launch of ‘My Pension’ and are likely to continue to decrease following implementation of the Digital Assistant.

4)    Further review of the Helpdesk data will be undertaken following the implementation of call-centre technology and transfer of the Helpdesk telephone number which is currently owned by Surrey County Council.

5)    The Pension Administration Team is holding a number of vacancies and are either actively recruiting into the vacancy or monitoring activity to manage the vacancy.

6)    Annual Benefit Statements for active and deferred members have now been issued to those who did not receive them in August following the application of the McCloud remedy and there are recalculations still required for non-active and requirements.

7)    Pension Dashboards have gone live and work is ongoing in relation to Additional Voluntary Contributions and how data is pulling through from Prudential.

8)    The number of existing employers yet to go live with i-Connect has decreased to 4 however there have been some challenges regarding changes to payroll software suppliers.

9)    The mortality and address tracing service contract ceased in January 2026 and the service will be moving to Heywoods from April which will operate on a monthly basis to ensure data is accurate and up to date.

69.3     The Board discussed the challenges regarding transfer ins and outs and noted that manual updates in relation to the McCloud remedy have contributed to the performance of these tasks.

69.4     The Board discussed the types of tasks that the Helpdesk are receiving have changed over time noting that the method of measuring Helpdesk performance is likely to change to reflect the current work of the Helpdesk and further changes expected with the launch of the digital assistant which is expected to go live by the end of March 2026.

69.5     The Board RESOLVED to note the updates within the Pension Administration report.