J Bailey presented an update on administration performance and issues for the period from July 2022 to September 2022. The case work performance was unavailable for distribution with the report and on this occasion was provided separately.

 

Main Points:

 

Staffing - The Authority has been successful in recruiting to existing vacancies,

including a key appointment of a Benefits Team Manager following the incumbent obtaining a promotion externally.

 

The organisational resilience report recently presented to the Staffing Appointments and Appeals Committee will result in a number of new vacancies over time which will be reported in future updates.

 

Sickness Absence - sickness absence has increased significantly for both short-term and long-term absence this quarter. Absence for Covid related illness is no longer reported separately, but records suggest over 50% of the short-term absences were Covid related, with a spike in July.

 

The incidence of long-term absence mainly represents two staff on long-term absence, both are now on phased returns and are being managed and supported in line with the Attendance Management arrangements, so a reduction is expected in Quarter 3.

 

Employer Performance – No concerns in respect to employers submitting their Monthly Data Returns.

 

Employer individual query reporting - ongoing dialogue between SYPA and Rotherham MBC payroll services in relation to the volumes of outstanding queries for employers for whom they provide a payroll support service and Rotherham MBC attended the last Board meeting to report on their improvement plans. There has been an increase in clearance rate, although not to the extent that had been planned, and additional resources are being allocated.

 

Members sought reassurance both that other employers receiving services from Rotherham were aware of these issues and about potential consequences by the end of the financial year if the situation had not been resolved.

 

J. Bailey advised that other employers had been briefed by Rotherham MBC but he will also write to them and provide reassurance.

 

The overall position is being kept under review and if necessary, further action could be taken in January if the situation is not acceptable and currently there were only 10 outstanding queries for the 30 other employers served by Rotherham Members were assured that a further review will be conducted at the end of December to allow the additional resources assigned to take effect.

 

If the position reached at that point is unacceptable, it will be for the Board to discuss what the next step would be and they may be asked to attend the next Board meeting.

 

R Nurrenabi noted a perception of employers of a deterioration in service for employers. J Bailey acknowledged this and noted that there had been a lack of understanding with some staff regarding monthly data submissions. Staff training has addressed the matter.

 

Contribution Payments – No issues to advise the Board on.

 

Scheme Member Engagement - The percentage of members satisfied has dropped below 90% so some further analysis was carried out to identify the root causes. There were 11 members who were dissatisfied and feedback was sought from them.

 

In response the following actions have been actioned:

 

An update to the retirement process is in hand so that each time a case is put on hold an e mail is sent to the scheme member to keep them updated on the situation responding to the criticism that members are not aware on progress with their case.

 

There were inconsistencies between the advertised response time for on line queries and the agreed performance standards along with some resource pressures within the Customer Services Team. Both issues have been addressed.

 

A considerable number of issues had been raised about tax codes and in particular the approach of applying a so-called “emergency code” when a pension comes into payment and staff do not have access to P45 information.

 

Work is in hand to change this approach which should lead to fewer members having to contact HMRC directly on this issue.

 

J. Bailey confirmed a trend analysis will be included in the next quarters report.

 

N. Dolan-Hamer asked about the specific comment received “When I contacted you regarding my underpayment, I was referred to payroll who no longer hold my full employment records. So unfortunately, I lost 2 years of my pension.”

 

J. Bailey confirmed that particular case had been followed up with the member. It was a misunderstanding on behalf of the member.

 

A return had not been received from a previous employer and this was resolved, so the member had not lost two years pension, it was an administration error on behalf of the employer that was resolved. In addition the monthly data collection process now in operation makes this scenario extremely unlikely in the future.

 

Scheme Member Engagement – Customer Centre - Feedback for the Customer Centre continues to be reasonably positive overall, satisfaction levels were slightly below 90% this quarter. An electronic survey was issued to 3,662 members with an email address who had contacted us by phone over the months of May, June and July 2022 to ask about their experience of our service delivery and for ideas on service improvements.

 

The 11% who were dissatisfied represented 51 individuals. Many do not leave specific comments it is often difficult to identify any recurring concerns but there are some clear themes that continue to emerge in relation to the accessibility of the online portal as well as some comments around offering face to face appointments.

 

Face to face appointments are again being offered to members. Appointments are also being offered throughout December and January for members who are struggling to access the Mypension site.

 

Member communication by e-mail - As with the telephony survey, the ratings have dropped slightly below 90% for this quarter. The response rates are relatively low and not all members provide information. Follow ups are undertaken separately with those who leave contact details. From the information received, a number of members continue to be unhappy with the use of the secure email system (Egress) for sending personal information.

 

Much of this seems to relate to a reluctance to create an Egress account. A project is underway to review the information currently being sent via secure email with a view to redirecting as much of this traffic as possible via the portal (albeit we have to recognise that some members would prefer not to use the portal either).

 

New Joiner Survey - As part of wider engagement with scheme members, feedback was sought into how members who had recently joined the scheme rated our service.

 

A survey was issued to 701 members who had joined the scheme in May, June and July 22022. The new joiner survey specifically asks about the welcome email/letter, including registration for the online portal.Only 55% of new joiners who responded  were satisfied which needs to be improved and a project to address this will be led by the new Communications Officer.

 

On issue identified from this survey was delays in contacting new members after they have been automatically enrolled by their employer at their first pay day. This is a result of the way in which monthly data submissions are processed and this is being addressed both through the reorganisation of ther resources devoted to data submissions and through process changes to allow earlier dispatch of joiner packs.

 

Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) and the triennial valuation – Statutory deadlines for the issuing of statements was met. The data was also submitted to the actuary for the triennial valuation exercise.

 

Indicative results for employers have been received from the actuary. For employers joining the scheme post April 2019, the former actuary worked differently so their starting position  was not set in a way the new actuary would have preferred. As a result, it has led to a short delay in informing employers of the outcome of the review in order to ensure that results are fully verified.

 

Workload Performance - Overall case volumes completed in the Quarter increased slightly compared with the previous quarter, this reflects a return to normal processing levels following a drop in Quarter One when the Projects Team were focusing on data quality work ahead of the 2022 valuation submission.

 

The overall number of non-priority cases completed has increased slightly but completion on target has dropped this quarter. The main issue causing this is the number of aggregations and unprocessed leavers which are being completed out of time. The Board had previously requested clarity on timescales for addressing the long-standing backlog in aggregations and J Bailey had explained that with workload pressures in other areas, this had been difficult to predict but would continue to be looked at.

 

Performance levels remained static for the individual subject areas when compared with Quarter One. There was a significant increase in the volumes of general enquiries and this was due to the concentration of annual benefit statements issued in the quarter.

The processing time figure for Active retirements are slightly misleading, in that when a query is passed to the employer by the authority, there is currently no way to remove that time from the processing time figure. While acknowledging that the length of time is a concern for members, some of the delay is due to factors outside the Authority’s control.

 

The Projects team focus for the next six months will be on clearing outstanding Aggregation cases. This has been delayed from the previously proposed timescale due to other commitments for that team.

 

Statutory Disclosure Reporting - Statutory targets are generally being met in the main areas. In general terms this data shows high levels of compliance in areas that SYPA can control. This gives some indication to areas where further engagement with, and training for, employers could be beneficial. A verbal update was provided on the number of Pension Saving Statements still to be issued for 2021/22 with a plan in place for them to be completed by the end of November. Given that this was a second occurrence of this issue Management had decided that it was appropriate for the Authority to report itself to the Regulator in relation to this.

 

RESOLVED –

 

a.    That the report as presented be noted;

b.    That a copy of the report to the Regulator related to Pensions Savings Statements be made available to the Board for consideration.