A report of the Head of Pensions Administration was submitted to provide Members with a comprehensive review of the experience of the Pensions’ Administration Division of the Authority since the last report of this nature in October 2015.

Members noted that following the launch of the UPM Pensions Administration System in November 2014, a report had been submitted to the October 2015 Authority meeting.  The Authority continued to encounter extremely problematic issues with the system and its development company Civica.

G Chapman reported that prior to the implementation of the new system, the Pensions Administration Division had met the 99% target performance target for scheme member transactions.  This had declined to 56% following the introduction of the new system.  Following overtime and a great deal of effort to improve the performance level, the level of all casework completed from 15 September 2015 to 14 September 2016 had increased to 83%.  Over 44,000 statements had been issued to members by the 31 August 2016 deadline.  One of the few areas which the UPM system had shown a marked improvement over a short period was the Pensions Payroll process, which had dramatically improved over the last two months.  The UPM system had impacted upon the Authority’s Information Technology (IT) Department, who had been inundated with user queries and helpdesk calls.  Staff continued to express high levels of frustration with the system, and staff morale continued to be low.

Councillor Wraith expressed concern at the continued overtime payments.  He enquired when the workload would resume to normal levels, and he queried whether senior representatives from Civica should be invited to attend a future Authority meeting.

G Chapman commented that the new scheme had placed many new demands upon the Pensions Administration Division to ensure that the CARE pension delivered into scheme members’ pension accounts was correct. The statutory deadline for production of annual statements allows little time to complete the work required without compromising other areas of work.  G Chapman said we were pushing the system in the right direction to achieve efficiencies, although staff manpower was required to achieve this.  He hoped to meet shortly with the new Civica leadership, following which he would arrange for them to attend a future Authority meeting if required.

Councillor McHale enquired whether plans were in place to review the procedures and processes.  He queried whether resources could be deployed more effectively.

G Chapman clarified his earlier comment by saying that bringing new staff at a fixed level for a specific task would bring immediate benefits to the team which would not happen if we went down the usual route of appointing career grade staff.  A considerable amount of time had been spent by the UPM team to ensure the work processes were obtaining maximum efficiency and further to this the intention of the online employer system was to undertake straight through-processing, which would help the Pensions Administration Division to meet the statutory deadline and drive efficiencies to deal with Members and customers to provide the service.  The Pensions Administration Division had previously achieved and continued to maintain the Customer Service Excellence Award.  It was essential to continue the link with scheme members, which had recently been compromised.

Members noted that a staffing issues report would be presented to the next Authority meeting, with a view to having a revised structure in place by 1 April 2017.  The staffing levels had not increased since 1997, but the workload had grown immensely.

RESOLVED – That Members:-

i)            Considered the contents of the report and commented on any areas where there were new or continued concerns.

ii)           Agreed that a staffing review report would be presented to the next Authority meeting.

iii)          Agreed that Civica would be invited to attend an Authority meeting, at an appropriate time in the future.