Meeting documents

Ms C Platts, Pensions Communications Officer, gave an overview of the report circulated with the agenda.

Ms Platts highlighted:

• The report appendix, which outlined business as usual Communication materials. The report covered Communications that had been completed in addition to those listed within the appendix.
• All BCC website content editors had been tasked with reducing the reading age of webpages. This was more difficult when pages needed to include legislation/policy based information; however, most of the Fund’s webpages were now at a 13 year old reading age. Reading ages were calculated via the Hemingway app system http://www.hemingwayapp.com/.
• In comparison with previous years, in 2018 only 1,000 newsletters had been printed to be sent to employees who had opted out of "My Pension Online", as part of their Annual Benefit Statement mailing. The 1,000 print run was split 50/50 between active and deferred scheme members. Active and deferred members were able to view the relevant Fund newsletter via the "my pension online" member portal as well as on the Fund’s website.
• The newsletter was a joint project in collaboration with a number of other Pension Funds. It included standard wording to ensure consistency of message for Scheme members in different Funds, but included some space for Fund specific content.
• The 2019 In Touch pensioner newsletter was about to go to print and would include a mixture of statutory information and general interest articles e.g. volunteering, Active Bucks, University of the Third Age, etc. A copy of the 2018 In Touch newsletter was tabled at the meeting for reference.
• 19 Employers were represented at the March Year-end training sessions, which took place on 5 and 13 March. The sessions were aimed at employers who did not use i-Connect to return information to the Fund and therefore were required to complete an annual return template for 2018/19. The training method had been changed to include an explanation by the main presenter of various data requirements, interspersed by group workshops, where Employers completed manual calculations to aid their understanding of our data requirements. Each group was facilitated by an Employer Liaison Officer. This method was very labour intensive for officers but they had received very positive feedback, which was tabled at the meeting. In future officers would review whether it may be better to hold training at different locations and look at showing the correlation between attendance and subsequent data quality and reporting issues.

There was a discussion around the best way to target communications. Ms Platts confirmed she was looking at different ways of communication and shared with the Board a short video she had been working on to familiarise Employers with the information available from the Fund’s webpages. There were three videos which would be added to the Fund’s website, embedded within the most appropriate content pages. The topics of the videos were:

• The LGPS retirement process
• Your LGPS annual benefit statement
• LGPS Employer web tour

The group briefly discussed the videos project. The Chairman thanked Ms Platts for showcasing the video. Ms Platts left the meeting.

RESOLVED: The Board noted the report.