Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the current status and progress against any specific target dates.

Speakers:

Tom Lewis, Head of Service Delivery

Neil Mason, LGPS Senior Officer

Sandy Armstrong, Technical Manager

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Head of Service Delivery highlighted several aspects of the submitted report including:

• It had been a testing period regarding the team’s performance. Delivery was not at the level hoped or planned to be in the future. There had been an impact felt through the MySurrey with a 20% increase in cases that are coming from the customer relationship team (CRT) through to the back office. Not all the issues were due to MySurrey. There were known areas needing improvement; standardisation of processes and maximising the system that we have in place was being looked at.
• Development of staff was being undertaken continually alongside regular meetings in the future with immediate benefits teams to discuss performance issues and improve internal governance and communication.  It had been recognised that resilience of the immediate benefits team was not what it should and resources had been realigned with a move of three staff into that team from other areas.  The impact of this had been assessed.  Some improvement in the October figures around death grants and the retirements had already been seen
• Work with the DB&I team and payroll to fill the gaps in terms of receiving information was ongoing, but there was not a clear indication of resolution from the DB&I team.
• Annex 1 figures had changed quite significantly. As an example, looking at deferred status the opening balance was quite high and now had come right down but that was due to the backlog being segregated from the day to day work.  Next quarter figures should be a true indication of what is in operational BAU and the legacy team work will be in a in a separate space.

2.    A Member asked if that meant that people coming to retirement in some cases were not receiving their pension on the due date.  The Head of Service Delivery explained that there could be a six to seven week period depending on when information was received and where that fell into the cycle. Also, the speed in which information was received from the person taking their pension was important.  However, in terms of missed Service Level Agreements (SLA) this was somewhere in the region of one to five days.  There were too many that were falling in the days just over the SLA.

3.    A Member raised concern about ill health retirements as these were in a potentially vulnerable position regarding late payments so should be prioritised and asked if payment could be made prior to receiving full information and then revisiting once all information had been received.  He also asked if there was something more fundamentally wrong that the Board should know about and referred to the movement of staff between teams that had been reported.

4.    The Head of Service delivery confirmed that ill health retirements were prioritised.  He explained the new daily allocation of work that had been set up and discussed at the Board previously.  The LGPS Senior Officer stated that he was confident in the new team and that a cultural change was happening and there were no fundamental issues.  This would not happen overnight, and further changes would be made as needed.

5.    The Head of Service Delivery highlighted the work of the CRT as it moved away from being solely a help desk.  Member support documents were being processed to help manage member expectations in the processes.

6.    The Head of Service Delivery highlighted the Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) rectification work and the approach that had been taken in line with SAB guidance.  Member expressed concern of this issue and hoped it would be concluded prior to the 2024 pensions increase.  In response to a Member question about communication of overpayment the Head of Service Delivery responded that members would be written to one month before changes to explain those changes and why they were being made.  The Board asked the Head of Service Delivery to consider what actions/communication would be made in cases that were challenged.

7.    The Head of Service Delivery explained the work being undertaken for McCloud.  The Technical Manager explained what was meant by Club Transfers as mentioned in the report. A Club Transfer was where a transfer takes place between a public service pension scheme and another public service pension scheme.  Government Actuary Department (GAD) guidance was awaiting on non-Club transfers.

8.    It was reported that the new team dealing with legacy case reductions had gone over the 10% reduction target at 18%.  This rise was expected to plateau for this quarter due to the legacy team being given access to the previous SAP system for data extraction before it closed on 31 December. A procurement exercise was now being undertaken to deal with the most complicated cases.

Actions/ further information to be provided:

That communication and actions needed around challenges to overpayments be included as part of the GMP project plan.

Recommendations:

The Board is noted the report.