Agenda item

Report of the Director of People Services.

7.1       Lee Witham (Director of People Services) presented the report and advised that work had been undertaken with Surrey County Council to produce a refreshed set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to more accurately represent the experience of pension scheme members. Every effort had been made to ensure that Surrey County Council put more resources in place to address issues of concern. He acknowledged that at the moment, some scheme members’ experience of pension administration matters was not entirely positive.

7.2       In respect of issues regarding BT’s performance, there had been three key areas of concern. With regard to auto re-enrolment, this had now been resolved. However concerns remained for starters and leavers, despite a huge focus from officers and BT in the last two months to address this. Lee Witham advised that the Pension Recovery Plan had been affected by commercial issues concerning the contract between the Council and BT in the last three weeks and this had complicated matters. There were also some inaccuracies in respect of annual benefit statement, with some being sent out late or still containing inaccuracies. Officers were pressing BT to ensure that more accurate data was produced.

7.3       During Members’ discussions, it was asked whether other bodies participating in the pension scheme were similarly affected by pension administration matters. Marie Holmes (Employer Representative) advised that in her experience, Surrey County Council had responded well to her queries and her organisation, like many others, used a different payroll provider to the Council’s. Christopher Smith emphasised that People Services had worked very hard to address issues and it was difficult to understand why some of the problems were still being experienced, as BT and Surrey County Council were being paid to provide a service, particularly in respect of BT’s performance. He welcomed any thoughts from the Chief Executive in identifying when these problems will come to an end. Members asked whether there were any arrangements in place to help scheme members who may be in real financial difficulty because of late payments. It was noted that the targets for the KPIs were 100%, with many not being met and it queried whether a more realistic target should be set in some cases.

7.4       Members commented on the division of work between the Board and the Pension Fund and it was suggested that the Board could take a lead role in considering pension administration matters. It was also recognised that the Board should perform a scrutiny function, particularly in respect of compliance to the LGPS and regulations.

7.5       In reply to questions raised by Members, Lee Witham acknowledged that there was more work to do to meet the KPI targets and he felt that it would be appropriate that one of the areas the Board focuses on includes pension administration performance. Sarah Hay (Pensions and Payroll Adviser) advised that emergency payments could be made where scheme members had got into financial difficulties due to late pension payments. Peter Carpenter advised that the Chief Executive held high level meetings with BT every two weeks to discuss their performance, the problems being experienced and the steps being taken to address these.