J Bailey presented the Quarterly Administration update for the period 1st July 2021 to 30th September 2021.

Staffing

A table contained within the report summarised the joiners and leavers – there had been limited movement during the period as most vacant posts had been filled.

Sickness absence had increased significantly during the quarter, details were contained within the report.

Casework Performance

Overall case volumes completed in the Quarter remained comparable with previous period but there had been a reduction in the rate of case completion rates within KPI measures.  This was due to two main factors:

•           The increased level of sickness absence was largely among senior Pensions Officers who were responsible for much of the priority work.

•           Senior officers were also involved in fixing a number of data errors identified during the production of the Annual Benefit Statements.

Statutory Disclosure Reporting

The Board had previously asked for additional information about reporting performance against statutory disclosure requirements.  Reporting had been developed in this area and Appendix A showed the Quarter 2 report for the areas covered under the various disclosure regulations.

Employer Performance

The vast majority of employers had continued to provide monthly returns.

Individual Query Employer Reporting

Appendix B showed the performance in recent quarters for the employers or payroll providers with the highest volume of queries, as requested by the Board.

Members noted that the trend analysis indicated an increase in the volumes of outstanding queries for Rotherham and Doncaster Councils (both administered by Rotherham payroll services).  There had also been a reduction in responsiveness from Rotherham payroll as a result of resourcing pressures. Positive engagements had continued with senior HR representatives and further meetings had been planned.

Two payroll providers (Capita and EPM) now appeared on the list of employers/providers with high volumes of queries outstanding.  Meetings with Capita had discussed an improvement plan and progress would be monitored.

It was noted that Sheffield CC had made very positive progress in reducing the numbers of outstanding queries.

In answer to a question from D Webster, J Bailey confirmed that the software issues in relation to the monthly data files from Rotherham MBC had been resolved.

C Scott queried whether any issues had been considered serious enough to report to the Regulator.

J Bailey replied that the monthly data issues had been resolved and the reallocation of resources was expected to resolve the individual queries problem over time but this would be actively monitored.  If there was no improvement there were a number of potential escalation routes – including use of the Admin Strategy and if necessary a report to the Regulator. 

It was noted that the direct debit process continued to be successful.

Customer satisfaction in all areas measured remained high.

Annual Benefit Statements

The Statutory Disclosure report at Appendix A confirmed that 99.7% of statements to active members and 100% of statements to deferred members had been issued to members by the 31st August deadline.

A number of miscellaneous data issues had been identified that needed to be resolved to ensure accurate statements could be issued.  These were all corrected during the production process but did cause a short tern drain on resources which impacted on the overall case performance for the quarter.  A lessons learned exercise was taking place to understand the cause of the data issues.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.