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,

Neil Mason, Assistant Director, LGPS Officer

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Head of Service Delivery highlighted various aspects of this report which included:

a)    overall performance has increased by 8% in this quarter.

b)    at the last Board meeting concern was expressed about performance in the immediate benefits team and since then mitigating changes to the team had shown some positive results.

c)    He had looked at the structure and vacancies to determine how best to balance the team and ensure the right resilience levels. Some vacancies had been moved around to create two additional posts within the immediate benefits team.

d)    The customer relationship team had received a reduced number of queries in this quarter due to the Christmas period.

e)    Unit 4 issues were still impacting the team and kudos was given to the team which had responded very well given the difficulty.

f)     Work on GMP had been paused as the team were carrying out the final quality assurance checks on what was thought to be the data to be uploaded into the system. Concerns had been found around some of the quality of the data and the consistency in which that was being provided. The project team had continued to assess the root cause of this but were concerned about making changes to Members’ pay and their pension benefits without having 100% satisfaction the data was right.  Officers were looking back as early as they could at some of the data requests and what was supplied to ensure that what was requested was supplied.

In response to a Member query the Head of Service Delivery explained that he expected in the next four weeks to be in a position where a first draft of the identified issues would be available for the team to review and assess.  Following that there would need to be talks with internal services and the supplier around the contractual elements.  An update would be brought to the next meeting of the Board.

g)    With regard to McCloud the team sent correspondence to those who would be affected or fall within the remedy period just before Christmas. This was to alert them to the changes that will come into effect and may affect them.

h)    The iconnect rollout continued and was a key focus. Those who had moved away from the Surrey payroll were a main priority to keep them on iconnect with their new provider. There were many employers that had been engaged as part of this project.  The aim was to move all employers onto iconnect by March 2025. This would remove the need for end of year return, which was a huge one-off manual task.

i)      Iconnect was also informing some of the digital transformation work being undertaken.

2.    The Board thanked the Head of Service Delivery and his team for all the work being undertaken.

Actions/ further information to be provided:

None.

Recommendations:

That the report be noted and confirm that no recommendations were needed to the Pension Fund Committee.