Agenda item

The Finance & Systems Manager (Pensions) presented the financial report. Expenditure with the directly controlled Administration budget was £152,000 below the original budget, mainly because of a delay in appointments to three posts in the investment team. Savings were already being made under the new custodial contract.

The Pensions Manager presented the administration report.

A.  Balanced scorecard

The balanced scorecard had been simplified, as Members had requested at the previous meeting. It was now contained on one page, rather than two. It would be reviewed again, with a view to showing workload more clearly.

B. Administration performance

All new work received in the quarter was cleared as well as 8.59% of old work, resulting in a performance of 108.59% in the quarter.

C. Customer satisfaction

Item 3 in Appendix 4A shows a 40% success rate for paying the lump sum within 10 days. Though apparently disappointing, when put in perspective this was in respect of only 5 out of 28 active members. The aggregate performance for paying the lump sum to active members was actually 76%.

D. Joiners and leavers

There was very little change in the number of members.

E. Opt-outs

The opt-out rate had been only 0.2%, which boded well for the LGPS 2014 scheme.

F. Employers’ performance

The graph for retirement performance cases within target on agenda page 299, shows improvement for Bristol and South Gloucestershire, but a fall in performance for B&NES and North Somerset. A review meeting had been held with these two unitaries, who had undertaken to improve their performance in the next quarter.

The performance for deferred cases (page 301) was not as bad as it looked when the impact of data cleansing is understood, as explained on page 296. 

No employers were late in paying the pension contributions due in the period.  Employer performance was even more important this year, because of the triennial actuarial valuation. . Some information had been received from all employers. Over 98% of correct member data was received in time from 2/3 of employers.  Employers who had not submitted full or correct information were listed on page 298. The largest of these was Circadian Trust (No 1) with 161 active members. Employers had been warned about penalties under the new Pensions Administration Strategy, and this had obviously been effective in improving performance.

 Members’ attention was drawn to the information about i-Connect on page 279.  Avon Pension Fund was the first local authority pension fund to go live with i-Connect.  Staff from the 10 largest employers had been given training in Employer Self-Service. It was hoped that all employers would use electronic data delivery from next year. Those making paper returns would be subject to additional charges.

G. LGPS 2014 scheme implementation project plan

Members were asked to note this.

RESOLVED

1. To note administration and management expenditure incurred for 12 months to 30 April 2013.

2. To note performance indicators and customer satisfaction feedback for 3 months to 30 April 2013.

3. To note the summary performance report for the period from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2013.