The Assistant Director – Pensions presented the Quarterly Administration Update Report to members. Following feedback from the Board this report has been condensed down from three reports into one.

Action – Future Quarterly Administration Update under 5.3 to show how the Authority is performing against the overtime plan so Members can see if the Authority is on track to clear the backlog.

Members raised concern over staff wellbeing in ensuring that they are not undertaking too much over-time.

The Assistant Director – Pensions confirmed this is being monitored and there are rules and limitations in place to ensure staff are still taking a break over the weekend.

Members welcomed the summary that will be provided in future reports to provide them with statistics on the scale of the operation and work involved day to day such as the number of calls and emails that come into the Authority. 

Action – The Authority to check the number of backlog cases as the number of cases at 34,000 that was mentioned does not tie in with the numbers in the report.

Members sought assurance around the breach in paragraph 9.2 which is shown as a breach of law and requested further explanation on this.

The Assistant Director – Pensions responded that under the current scheme rules a refund must be paid to someone within five years of them leaving, and the Authority were unable to contact the member to confirm they wanted the refund and where they would like it paying to so in this case were forced to breach despite numerous efforts. The recording of breaches also requires improvement, and this is something which will be worked on.

Members raised whether they should be concerned about the 87 quotations for deferred members which took over 16 days to complete.

The Assistant Director – Pensions responded that despite this process being online which should make things quicker, members are still required to prove their identity by sending certificates through the post. Our service provider is currently looking into ways that members could prove their identity online to reduce this timescale, but the Authority needs to ensure it remains Cyber compliant. 

RESOLVED: Members accepted the report with comment and indicated areas where they would like to receive further detail.