Agenda item

The Pensions Operations Manager introduced the report to the Board and highlighted the following points.

·  Pensions Administration Strategy – Following approval by Committee in September, a consultation with employers began on 7th November and will end on 31st January 2026. Initial feedback from employers has been positive.

·  Oasis direction order – The order approves the consolidation of 53 academies and associated admitted bodies to LPFA. The APF have 10 academies and 1 admitted body covering approximately 1500 member including active, deferred and pensioner members. This change will create significant additional workload and expense for the Fund for which we will seek recovery from Oasis and have this agreed in the final direction order.

·  SLA monthly performance average October 2024 to October 2025 – Latest position: 89%

·  Total KPI’s outstanding – Oct 2024 to Oct 2025 – Latest position: 1,268

·  KPI’s outstanding over 31 days – Oct 2024 to Oct 2025 – Latest position: 189

·  KPI cases outstanding under 31 days – Oct 2024 – Oct 2025 – Latest position: 1079

·  Service performance – Plan v’s Actual – Oct 2025 - Latest position: 88% (+3% ahead of plan)

Status 2 Records

During the last year, the number of status 2 records we held on our system peaked at 8,307 during September 2024. Compared with 3,790 status 2 records as at the end of October 2025, this is a 55% reduction.

As at the end of October 2025, the total outstanding cases sat at 3,669, of these, 859 are awaiting replies to enable processing. 366 are awaiting a response from the member and 225 are awaiting a response from another LGPS Fund.

iConnect Leaver Cases – Spikes are experienced in both December and September on a yearly basis, with the highest number of created cases being in September 2025 with a figure of 1,721.

Data Improvement Plan

The Pensions Operations Manager explained that PASA had recently issued new guidance and a template in late November and she therefore proposed to review the document and bring it back to the Board in March 2026.

Statutory Annual Requirements

·  Data Return outcomes

o   504 employers submitted year-end data returns, covering 41,709 members.

o  2 employers (0.4%) were fined for late returns.

o  3 employers (0.6%) were fined for excessive data queries (*less than 2% query rate).

o  8 employers (1.6%) received a data improvement plan (**reduced from 21 in 2024).

o  Employer participation increased by 4% compared to the previous year.

The Chair asked what further can be done to try to contact the 3,827 ‘Gone Aways’.

The Pensions Operations Manager replied that a cleansing exercise has been ongoing since August which will provide feedback on the likelihood of a person living at a specific address. The fund also have a new data cleansing tool as part of the software package which recently went live.

The Avon Pension Fund Project Manager addressed the Board to provide them with an update on two projects.

My Pension Online

·  What it is?

o  Provides secure, 24/7 access to pension information

o  Enable lifestyle-based retirement planning

o  Support digital-first member engagement

·  Benefits

o  SMS two-factor authentication for enhanced security

o  Accessible, user-friendly design with clear retirement planning tools

o  Fast, easy access to pension details

·  What and how the project delivered

o  DPIA for governance and compliance

o  User testing across Fund teams

o  Registration campaign and stakeholder engagement

o  Staff training and rollout support

·  Future Developments

o  Boost member registrations – developing communication opportunities

o  Online P60s and payslips

o  Digitised workflows and processing

30,000 members emailed about the project, 8,000 have registered to use it.

Stuart Pearson said that he felt that the project provided a positive step change for members.

Alison Wyatt commented that she found it very easy to use.

Pensions Dashboard

·  Connected to Dashboard ecosystem from 31^st October 2025

·  During 2026

o  Finalise and implement new BAU & Annual processes (inc. AVCs)

o  Continue Status 2 reduction

o  Embed ongoing compliance monitoring & review frequency

o  Assess workload & resourcing in advance of going live

·  Potential live date early in 2027

The Board RESOLVED to note the service performance to the period ending 31st October 2025.