Agenda item

The Head of HR and Service Centre introduced the report which updates the Board on the performance of the team. The Board was reminded that in December 2020 the Council issued a corporate voluntary severance scheme which meant there was increased demand of 200 pension’s estimates for interested scheme members. The team delivered the 200 estimates within target timescales despite lack of resources. There remained areas of issues in the backlog of deferred benefit calculation for which a contract had now been signed with Hymans for clearance of this and they had been handed 2700 cases for analysis as to how to approach them. It was envisaged that there would be figures to be reported to the Board on progress at its next meeting. An experienced senior pension officer had joined the team and the vacancy for the support officer was being interviewed for in the next week.

In response to a member question on what more could be done to promote the online service and increase usage, officers acknowledged that this should be an area of priority and there was an opportunity to do some targeted work on this in line with the annual benefits statement release. This would be discussed in more detail and a plan formulated to be brought back to the next meeting of the Board. The software provider had made some improvements on ease of usage of the system around registration and ability to reset own passwords as well as updates on the system with member self-service additions.

It was commented that it was disappointing that there was only 27% of usage of the online system and it was suggested that this could be a matter for operational management and could be discussed in team meetings with team managers actively promoting and encouraging staff to utilise the service in order to be abreast with their financial health.

The appearance of a slight downward trend on notification of death benefits was commented on and officers said that this was as a result of one case in January that was awaiting further information on that resulted in this, prior to that the target of 100% had been met in all instances.

A Member commented that clarification on the communication process between the Pensions team and members in schools was sought as it would appear that Pensions forecasts went to head of schools and it was down to the head to disseminate that information. The fact that this process would change with the pension dashboard going online was welcomed. It was asked what the union could do to facilitate and open up lines of communication. Officers said that the Council had a schools forum and bulletin that the pensions scheme contributed to and prior to the pandemic an employer’s forum that they used to communicate. It was agreed that information about online access and accessing benefit statement would be shared and the link would be shared to the public website for this information.

 In response to a question on McLeod and resources, officers said that some information had been obtained from Haywards which was being analysed for any missing data. It was envisaged that extra sources would be needed and the scale and period this would be required for was still being worked through.

The Chair expressed the wish to invite the director of HR to the July meeting of the board for members to be able to directly convey some of their concerns.  Members agreed to this recommendation.

RESOLVED: The Board AGREED to Note the Key Performance Indicators and the performance against these indicators set out in Appendix A to this report and;

The Chair write to invite the Director of HR to the July 2021 meeting of the Board.