Agenda item

In accordance with Fund’s governance objectives in the 2020/21 Business Plan.

Witnesses:

Mr Nick Harrison - Chairman of the Local Pension Board

Nick Weaver - Head of Pensions Administration

Neil Mason - Strategic Finance Manager (Pensions)

Key points raised in the discussion:

1. The Chairman of the Local Pension Board informed the Committee that the Board recently met the new Head of Pensions Administration, who provided Members with his initial view on key issues within the service.
2. The Chairman of the Local Pension Board summarised that the Board:

·         discussed the Service Improvement Plan which was ambitious in its proposed timescales to deliver key projects.

·         noted the two challenging Internal Audit reviews and a further audit position statement was expected.

·         focused on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), concluding that it did not think the Pensions Administration team were making sufficient progress on the backlog.

·         that there were several changes to existing risks on the register and a new one was added concerning inaccurate KPI’s as a result of the lack of management control over the backlog - Risk A23.

·         acknowledged that the figures showed that routine work was being cleared in preference to critical work and asked for deaths, new pensions and transfers to be prioritised and completed in good time - JLT were successfully working through their tranche of the backlog.

3. The Vice-Chairman commented that much of the report was focused on Pensions Administration. He felt that there was greater scope for the Local Pension Board (LPB) to be a point of governance in response to the Committee spending increasing amount of time on ESG matters. He commented that it would be useful to add the reputational risk of the Fund to the Fund’s Risk Register as reviewed by the LPB.
4. The Head of Pensions Administration acknowledged that there was a lot to do and it was vital to balance ensuring the fundamentals were correct whilst improving the service. It was important to complete one large piece of work at a time and address the backlog and KPIs which did not add up.
5. In response to a Member query on whether the Committee could help speed up progress within Pensions Administration through more resources or learning from other funds, the Chairman of the Local Pension Board was satisfied with the approach taken by the Head of Pensions Administration.
6. The Head of Pensions Administration stressed that he wanted the Pensions Administration team to be empowered to understand and take responsibility for ownership of projects rather than greater outsourcing to external administration teams. 
7. The Strategic Finance Manager (Pensions) reminded the Committee of the governance structure in which the Pension Fund and Pensions Administration teams regularly met to review actions taken to the Local Pension Board, which were later scrutinised by the Committee.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee:

1. Approved the proposed change to the Risk Register.

2. Noted the minutes of the Local Pension Board meeting of 13 February 2020.

Actions/further information to be provided:

The Chairman of the Local Pension Board would work with officers to add a new risk to the Fund’s Risk Register concerning the reputational risk of the Fund in respect of ESG matters.