Agenda item

63.1     The Committee considered a report providing an update on matters relating to Pensions Administration activities and Paul Punter (PP) drew the Committee’s attention to the following points:

KPIs

1)    The volume numbers of tasks received are extraordinarily high compared to the historical position and are unsustainable. 82% for Q4, 2024 performance, so below what officers are aiming for. However, the table in Appendix 1 of the report demonstrates that performance has improved over the quarter as the workload has decreased through clearing the backlog, which is encouraging. Further, death and retirement requests were processed on time which is key.
 

2)    The Admin Working Group met on 2 December 2024 and went through the October 2024 Admin Performance in detail. Full explanations were provided about the cases with the longest number of days taken and where the average number of days were high. The attendees were appropriately reassured the data was accurate and being reported correctly and most importantly that the PAT were working tirelessly and effectively to clear the backlog and improve the reported team performance. The impact of uneven spikes in post received (like following the issue of ABS) were much better understood.  November and December 2024 KPIs demonstrated a significant improvement, and the Admin Working Group will look at the detail of this at their next meeting.

3)    January 2025 saw further admin performance improvement (91%), however, poorer numbers are anticipated in February and March 2025 due to the mid-year bulk file from BHCC. The BHCC i-Connect January 2025 data file was run in early February 2025 and overall went well which is very positive and indicates that the BHCC monthly i-Connect files should treated as BAU like other onboarded employers. Officers will not support BHCC with the February 2025 i-Connect file upload.

4)    In response to questions from the Committee about capacity, officers confirmed that based on the January 2025 i-Connect file and through regular calls with BHCC that there is confidence that this work can be done effectively without support from the Fund’s officers. 

Helpdesk

5)    The Fund aims to achieve a gold standard service provision for the Pensions Helpdesk. The team is working effectively, and members of the Helpdesk are taking on more work from the administration team and there are no concerns.

Staff

6)    Since the last meeting there has been one resignation, and a staff member will be beginning maternity leave, so some redeployment of staff required.
 

Projects

7)    Pensions Dashboard: Officers continue to focus on getting the data ready using a Heywood Altair Insights dashboard report to identify gaps. Heywood are our Integrated Service Provider, and a project plan has been created, with a two-phase approach pencilled in. Phase one was completed in January 2025.  Reconciliation of data from the Altair system and Prudential is ongoing to ensure it is consistent. All schemes must onboard by 31 October 2026, but the LGPS formal staging date is 31 October 2025. It is not yet known when the pension dashboards will go live to the public. 

8)    I-Connect: Officers had targeted the last 10 employers (who had historically had data issues or been less engaging) to be onboarded by 31 March 2025. All have had their initial meetings and discussions about our specifications and requirements, two of the employers won’t progress at this point as they are changing their payroll software on 1 April 2025. University of Brighton is almost ready to be onboarded which represents good progress. The increased volume of employers now onboarded to i-Connect should reduce the number of queries when officers start the ABS work.

Pension software

9)    A paper on the Pensions Admin Software tender was presented to the Pensions Committee on 21 November 2024 advising Officers had evaluated the LGPS Framework bid and were happy with the quality of the submission. Officers recommended that Heywood Limited would continue to provide a robust and comprehensive service to the Fund and further system enhancements should be taken on as part of a new contract. The Pensions Committee authorized the Chief Finance Officer to complete the appropriate due diligence to award the contract. The award was made on 23 January 2025. The contract will commence on 28 April 2026 for a five-year term, with an option to extend up to 26 April 2034.

63.2     The Committee welcomed the detailed information and thanked the officers for their continued hard work and transparent reporting.

63.3        The Committee RESOLVED to note the report.