Agenda item

This report provides a summary of administration and governance issues reviewed by the Local Pension Board (the Board) at its last meeting (21 February 2025).

Speakers:

Tim Evans, Chairman of Local Pension Board

Tom Lewis, Head of Service Delivery

Andy Brown, Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director - Resources

Key points raised in the discussion:

1.    The Chairman of the Board highlighted the positive update on the General Code of Practice.He highlighted that LGR was under consideration. He congratulated the Head of Service Delivery and his team on the continuing improvement. He noted that work was underway on MySurrey and he noted the impact of the proposed changes to inheritance tax (IHT) and death benefits.

2.    The Head of Service Delivery explained that the data received was now fully up to date, records were being processed.The team was three quarters of the way in completing the backlog of 2,100 cases predominantly for deferred cases. Work remained to be done on configurations for pensions on MySurrey, the configuration around calculating employer contributions consistently needed resolving. Work was required on member records on missed contributions, and a Council team was in place. Backlog payments/allocations amounted to £1.5 million for employer contributions, and half that for employee contributions. Plans were in place to communicate with affected members. Employer contributions were expected to come through soon and records be updated retrospectively.

3.    The Head of Service Delivery noted the significant risk on accounting and banking controls, there were areas where the system was not operating to enable reconciliation of bank accounts and invoicing. The requirements had been fully documented and understood, a solution in MySurrey was being reviewed, the Council was to provide the estimated timeframes and costs, which were to be met by the Council.

4.    The Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director - Resources emphasised that the resolution of employer contributions was a priority through the Stabilisation and the Optimisation programmes, he praised the officers working together to resolve the issue and backlog since go live. The Council had committed a significant one-off resource to resolve the issue. Other issues to be resolved were the ledger, banking, and accounting; LGR would affect that in terms of the Fund’s future administration.

5.    The Chairman noted that 31 March is an important date in terms of the actuarial valuation and submission of data for Annual Benefit Statements (ABS), and the position was positive.The Head of Service Delivery noted that from a valuation perspective there was a slight deficit, that could be corrected once the money comes in from the MySurrey backlog.From a data perspective for year-end, there were issues with some of those records as those were not yet reconciled from an individual member level, for example pensionable pay was lower than expected. Some members had not received an ABS this year, as the corrections were being worked through.

6.    The Chairman praised the team for the performance levels of 97% overall.

7.    The Chairman noted that the CEM Benchmarking report is a valuable source of information about improvements to the service, he suggested that the Board look at that. The Chairman of the Board noted that he was happy to do so.

8.    The Chairman of the Board thanked the Committee’s Chairman for his support.

RESOLVED:

1.    Noted the content of this report.

2.    The Committee asked the Board to review the CEM Benchmarking report to consider service improvements.

Actions/further information to be provided:

None.