Agenda item
Pension Fund Administration Update
- Meeting of Pensions Committee, Monday, 31st July, 2017 7.00 p.m. (Item 6.8)
- View the background to item 6.8
Report to follow.
Minutes:
George Bruce, Interim Pensions Manager, presented the report which covered current issues affecting scheme members and employers participating in the Tower Hamlets Pension Scheme.
The Committee was advised that Anant Dodia, Pensions Manager had retired In the interim, Team Leaders will be responsible for overseeing the daily operation of the Team; in addition an experienced Pensions Manager from Surrey Council will provide support to the Service and act as a Mentor. Suzanne Jones, Deputy to the Divisional Director, will continue to attend Committees and assist with employee matters and act as link to team management. The Project Team will continue to work on the Member Self-Service Project.
The following Admin data was reported:-
During the period between April - May 2017 service standards increased and improved from 78% to 86% from the previous quarter. There has been steady progress made in relation to compliance.
Internal Disputes Resolution Procedures, an outstanding appeal has gone to an external reviewer; this is due to contractual information.
The Committee were advised that at their meeting in December 2016 they had discussed and agreed the recommendation to admit Energy Kidz into Pension Scheme and that the discussion and committees resolution was not included in the minutes meeting of 7 December 2017. This recommendation has again been repeated.
Members were advised that Compass Catering had recently advised that that they had employed over a dozen staff in September 2015 and that their request for admitted body status had not been processed. The meeting was informed that deductions from employees have been made since 2015 and that Compass Catering was to be granted admitted body status.
Internal Audit are scheduled to return and will be reviewing the service as part of the 2016 /2017 agreed internal audit plan. Members were advised that the earnings of Active Members will need to be checked to ensure that benefits received are correct. The addresses of these individuals have been checked.
The Actuary has issued a report on the quality of data that was provided during the triennial actuarial valuation in March 2016. A total of 700 members were noted as not having a home address; to rectify this, a company has been commissioned to undertake searches to identify addresses. A charge of £12 will be levied for each address; this cost was viewed as justifiable and good use of budget. The Inland Revenue Service was liaised with.
At the recent Pensions Board, discussions were held about undertaking a formal review of data control and also a benchmarking exercise.
The Committee were reminded that two data matching exercises are carried out on annual basis to ensure that pensions are only paid to surviving scheme members; these include the National Fraud Initiative for UK pensioners and Life certificates for overseas pensions.
The HMRC will be writing to all persons who are entitled to a GMP (Guaranteed Minimum Pensions) to advise what amount and pension scheme will be paid. The GMP is part of the LGPS pension; the government pays the annual inflation increases on the GMP as part of the state pension and the pension funds awards pension increases on that element of the pensions that is not GMP. HMRC are giving schemes an opportunity to agree records prior to their notifications to individuals. There is consideration for the service to purchase external resources to undertake the above. The Committee was advised that the completion of the above would be a valuable exercise and was estimated to be of a value of a six figure sum.
The Committee noted that George Bruce was to leave the Service and thanked him for his work and contributions to the Pensions Committees.
Resolved:
1. That Energy Kidz Ltd. be admitted as an employer within the pension fund
2. That Compass Contract Services (UK) Ltd be admitted as an employer within the pension fund.
Supporting documents:
- PC - Pension Fund Administration Update_v1, item 6.8 PDF 158 KB
- 1 Appendix 1 July 2017, item 6.8 PDF 45 KB
- 1 Appendix 2 July 2017, item 6.8 PDF 31 KB
- 1 Appendix 3 July 2017 - Internal Audit, item 6.8 PDF 102 KB