Agenda item

Report of the Director of People Services.

4.1       Sarah Hay (Senior Pensions and Payroll Adviser) presented the report and advised that there had been a dip in performance for some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) during the January to March 2019 period. This was attributable to the Administration Team in East Sussex not following through the full work flow of duties, such as not undertaking a daily monitoring of replies from pension scheme members to letters sent out by Surrey County Council. (SCC). Sarah Hay advised that she had since visited the Administration Team to raise this issue and it was hoped that the KPIs for April would demonstrate that this was no longer a cause for concern.

4.2       In respect of data cleansing, Sarah Hay advised that the number of errors identified had reduced by 39% as of end of April. She confirmed that all of the Fund’s employers had completed status 2 leaver data to SCC. As of the end of April 2019, 77% of cases had been completed and with SCC, ready to be sent to JLT for processing. As of 13 May, a further two batches had also been sent over to SCC and an update on the data cleansing exercise could be provided at a future meeting.

4.3       During Members’ discussions, the Chairman noted that there had been no cases brought to the attention of People Services about the problems experienced during the January to March period. She also requested the updated KPIs for April. Regarding data cleansing in identifying the true employer, the Chairman enquired whether any of 185 cases referred to SCC may involve potential fraud.

4.4       Members queried why the Council was liable for the £14,500 costs for removing critical errors in the Fund’s data.  Members also sought assurances that the data cleansing would not unearth further issues. It was also queried whether the auditors would pick up any issues concerning data cleansing.

4.5       The Board welcomed the progress made in respect of the existence checking of pensioners living overseas, an exercise undertaken by Western Union on behalf of the Council.

4.6       In reply to issues raised by the Board, Sarah Hay advised that she was not aware that it had led to any pension scheme members suffering hardship and this had not been raised at the Pensions Annual General Meeting. A number of steps were being taken to improve data accuracy through data cleansing. The Board heard that The Pensions Regulator required administering authorities to measure data accuracy each November and the Data Improvement Plan would help to minimise data inaccuracies which Sarah Hay agreed to email this plan to Members. With regard to identifying the true employer, Sarah Hay advised that this was likely to involve instances where schools that were Fund members were using different payroll providers and there was no particular reason to suspect that fraud may be involved. Members heard that the Fund has responsibility to check data and so are liable for the costs involved. Sarah Hay stated that the auditors would focus on the process of ensuing accurate data, rather than looking at specific instances of missing data.

4.7       Phil Triggs (Tri-Borough Director of Treasury and Pensions) added that the internal auditors would focus on systems checking and this would involve looking at a sample of data. It was also important to work closely with internal audit to help maintain data accuracy.

4.8       The Chairman requested that information on the size of the pension scheme’s liability and an update on the work undertaken by internal audit for the pension scheme be provided at the 15 October meeting.