Meeting documents

To be presented by Chris Thompson.

Mr C Thompson presented the report to the Board and highlighted the following:

• The Pensions & Investments Team used the customer charter to outline their commitment to turning work around within certain timescales.
• All post and requests for information would be logged daily and reported on monthly to monitor the percentage of work that was not completed within the prescribed time limit.
• The Benefit Administration Team continued to work hard to keep daily tasks up to date in priority areas as well as working through backlogs of work.
• The number of leaver notifications received as a result of year end had seen a rise in the level of leaver tasks. This has decreased from approximately 2,100 tasks to 1,600 tasks between March 2017 and the end of June 2017.
• The Benefit Administration Team had not been at full staffing capacity over the past few months; however, following successful recruitment, the team would be back to full capacity by mid-August which would assist to clear any outstanding backlogs.

In response to questions, Mr Thompson stated the following:

• The percentage of the targets for workload statistic would be better displayed as to whether the target was met or not, rather than provide the percentage figure. Mr Thompson to action for future meeting reports.

ACTION: Mr Thompson

• In relation to the top ten cases dealt with by the team, the transfers show that only 47% were within timeframe and it was queried why these would not be completed within the given timeframe. Mr Thompson explained that it would be rare for these not to be completed between 21 and 30 days. The Board asked where the target figures came from and Mrs Lewis-Smith explained they were in-house targets we had set ourselves. Mr Preston suggested these be reviewed as some of the targets missed are outside of our control. There would be a need to work with Heywoods on system development and then set realistic targets for all the administration processes and see where delays can be driven out.
• Mr Bowman stated there needed to be focus on the customer experience as customers are not interested in where the delays are. Mr Bowman suggested there could be more work in relation to onboarding, specifically for the County Council so that pension information could be available when an offer of employment was made. Mrs Platts confirmed that all employers are asked to sign post new employees to the pensions web site where all the relevant information is available to them.
• Employees were not just retiring at the age of 65 and members could remain in the scheme past this age.
• Ms Black asked if any priority had been given to change projects where there may be redundancies as the result was often reliant on the pension figures. Mr Thompson would look into this.

ACTION: Mr Thompson

• The number of members signed up to the Member Self Service currently stood at 33.87%. Ringway Jacobs employees had signed up over 82% of their employees.
• Staff from the systems team would be working with Aylesbury Vale District Council to promote the Member Self Service system.

RESOLVED

The Board NOTED the report.