Agenda item

This report considers changes made to the risk register for the Surrey Pension Team in Quarter 2 of 2023/24. 

Speakers:

Paul Titcomb, Head of Accounting & Governance

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Head of Accounting & Governance introduced the submitted report and highlighted the following areas:

• With regards to risk 16, several data population and access availability issues followed the initial go live with MySurrey. Process backlogs had built up as a result.  Delayed processing remained a risk primarily due to ongoing configuration issues and the risk score has consequently been raised this quarter and would remain under review.
• Regarding the MySurrey implementation, the system is being populated but there were continued difficulties in extracting data.  There were several reports required that were not yet configured. There were resource intensive work-arounds in place and a solution was being progressed. There were other processing issues and payroll information remained an issue. An issues log had been compiled.

2.    A Member asked if the system was implemented too early and whether there had been enough testing.  The Head of Accounting & Governance responded that he could only speak from the perspective of the Pension Fund, but, that some additional testing for pensions may have been beneficial, for example with regards to reporting.  Some generic reports were being used within the system, but irrelevant data had needed to be filtered and checked line by line.  The ability to configure the exact fields needed from the reports was currently missing.

3.    A Member asked if there was a timescale to the additional treat mechanisms on the risk register because it appeared that some of them were what you would want to have at the beginning of the implementation. 

4.    The Head of Accounting & Governance explained that they were working closely with the Digital, Business & Insights (DB&I) Team.  The MySurrey helpdesk ticketing system had been used to make sure that concerns were raised within their own helpdesk and at the moment it was difficult to put time frames on it.  Another issue was that the period of assistance by the original project team was originally three months post Go Live, had been extended to the end of the year but some of the people dealt with initially had left, so there was a further transition issue on the assistance that was available.

5.    A few Members, echoed by the Chairman of the Board, expressed concern about this issue which was systemic in that it affected so much of what can be done in terms of functioning of the Pensions Team and requested the issue be escalated to the Committee, and more generally, because it didn't only affect the Pensions Team.  It was agreed that the Chairmen of the Board and Committee meet with the Director of Corporate Finance & Commercial along with the LGPS Senior Officer to discuss the form of escalation.

Actions/ further information to be provided:

That the Chairmen of the Board and Committee meet with the Director of Corporate Finance & Commercial along with the LGPS Senior Officer to discuss escalation of the MySurrey issues.

Recommendations:

1.    The Board noted the report, the Risk Register and Financial System Update.

2.    That the Board, with the Pension Fund Committee escalate concerns with MySurrey through the Director of Corporate Finance & Commercial.