Agenda and minutes
Venue: MS Teams
Contact: Anne-Marie Kenward
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Apologies / Declarations of interest Minutes: There were none. |
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Minutes of the Pension Fund Board PDF 442 KB To agree the minutes of the Pension Fund Board held 28 July 2021. Minutes: The minutes of the previous meeting would be amended to include a declaration of interest for T Pearce. T Pearce was potentially affected by the £95k pension cap, which is expected to be under consultation later this year.
RESOLVED Members of the Board AGREED the minutes of the Pension Fund Board held 28 July 2021 subject to the above change.
Regarding action under item 10 C Lewis-Smith had confirmed there would be no central government funding available to local authority pension schemes to support costs incurred through McCloud rectification.
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Minutes of Pension Fund Committee PDF 426 KB To note the minutes of the Pension Fund Committee held 9 September 2021. Minutes: RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the minutes of the Pension Fund Committee held 9 September 2021.
A member of the board stated their dissatisfaction that Grant Thornton continued to cause delays to the final sign off of their organisation’s statement of accounts. A recent example was the 2020/21 accounts had a deadline of 30 September, but the IAS19 assurance letter had only arrived on 29 September. Buckinghamshire Council officers had issued reminders to Grant Thornton but had not raised concerns as a formal issue. This was considered to be a national issue.
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i-Connect/Pensions "Online" Update PDF 575 KB To be presented by Sam Price, Assistant Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council.
Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
There were 3 large employers / payroll providers still to register for i-Connect:
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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Internal Administration Benchmarking PDF 837 KB To be presented by Sam Price, Assistant Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council. Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
The following points were discussed:
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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Breaches of the Law PDF 559 KB To be presented by Claire Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council. Additional documents:
Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
There had been no changes to the Procedure for Reporting Breaches of the Law (appendix 1). Breaches for the year were recorded under appendix 2.
The 4 breaches we discussed:
within designated timeframes. This was a national issue and officers continued to work with the provider and LGA who have raised this as a concern on behalf of all Funds.
Members of the Board noted that the first 3 breaches were related to reporting requirements rather than things the fund had failed to do.
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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To be presented by Claire Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council.
Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
Buckinghamshire Pension Fund (BPF) offers Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) arrangements with Prudential and Scottish Widows. There have been concerns over the administration performance of Prudential over the past few months and the report provided an update on the current AVC providers used by LGPS Funds, an overview of the issues and the options available to BPF. Claims were now being paid within 2 weeks thanks to national pressure however there was a 125-day delay in answering general administration queries. Prudential would be invited to the next Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) meeting to defend their position.
BPF will continue to offer LGPS members the option of contributing to AVC arrangements with both Prudential and Scottish Widows. A full review of AVC providers will take place in due course, monitoring of Prudential’s administration performance continues both locally and at a national level.
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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GMP reconciliation/rectification PDF 583 KB To be presented by Sam Price, Assistant Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council. Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
The GMP reconciliation/rectification exercise is now complete. There was a potential issue with GMP equalisation which may require recalculation of historical transfer values paid with a final decision on how this applied to local government schemes to be made by DLUHC.
A member of the board asked how overpayments and underpayments would be accounted for. J Edwards stated overpayments would be accounted for in the financial years they were paid, the underpayment arrears would be accounted for in the 2021/22 accounts.
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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Administration Performance Statistics PDF 766 KB To be presented by Sam Price, Assistant Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council.
Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
C Lewis-Smith noted the action from the previous meeting, to include more information regarding the “change” category, had not been applied. This may be due to the low number of responses in this category. C Lewis-Smith would follow this up. Action C Lewis Smith
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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To be presented by Claire Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council.
Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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Annual Benefit Statements - Administration Year End Update PDF 580 KB To be presented by Sam Price, Assistant Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council. Minutes: C Lewis-Smith, Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council, referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.
The Chairman noted the hard work of the team issuing 98.14% of annual reports within the statutory deadline.
RESOLVED Members of the Board NOTED the update.
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Exclusion of Press and Public To resolve to exclude the press and public as the following item is exempt by virtue of Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12a of the Local Government Act 1972 because it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information). |
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Annual Benefit Statements - Confidential Appendix To be presented by Sam Price, Assistant Pensions Administration Manager, Buckinghamshire Council. |
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Confidential minutes of Pension Fund Board To agree the confidential minutes of the Pension Fund Board held 28 July 2021. |
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Confidential minutes of Pension Fund Committee To note the confidential minutes of the Pension Fund Committee held 9 September 2021.
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Risk Register To be presented by Julie Edwards, Head of Pensions, Buckinghamshire Council. |
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Pension Fund Performance To be presented by Julie Edwards, Head of Pensions, Buckinghamshire Council. |
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Date of next meeting / AOB 15 December 2021, 10am via MS Teams. Minutes: 15 December 2021, 10am via MS Teams.
The Chairman asked the vice-chair to be on standby to chair this meeting. |