Agenda item

Areport for the Board’s ongoing oversight of:

·     Scheme, Regulatory, Legal and Fund Update

·     Risk Register

·     Administration KPI update – 1 July 2023 to 30 September 2023

a)    Key business plan items – Aggregation Backlogs / i-Connect & Controls / Resourcing

b)    Outsourcing updates

c)    ABS & PSS updates

·     Audit update 2022/23

a)      SWAP Audit 2022/23

b)      Audit schedule 

Richard Bullen, Fund Governance Manager, presented the Headlines & Monitoring (HAM) report which provided information highlighting key issues and developments to enable the Board to fulfil its monitoring role.

The report detailed updates in the following areas:

·       Headlines

·       Key Business Plan items – Aggregations backlog, i-Connect and controls, and Resourcing

·       Scheme, Regulatory, Legal, and Fund Update

·       Risk Register

·       Administration Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) update – 1 July 2023 to 30 September 2023

·       ABS and PSS updates

·       Audit Update 2022/23

1)    SWAP Audit 2022/23

2)    Audit Schedule

Members began by congratulating officers of the Fund winning the award for “Best Approach to Responsible Investment” again at the LAPF Investment Awards.

In response to a question regarding the impacts of the vacant Employer Services Manager role on the wider team, officers highlighted that the role itself was difficult to recruit to, due to the specific set of technical skills required and its integral nature to the smooth running of the service. Despite this, it was noted that there a number of officers were acting up to support the role which meant that workloads were increasing, and time was being taken away from other tasks. It was further explained that officers were outsourcing members of staff for the longer-term projects such as the payroll reconciliation project, rectification project, and aggregations backlog.

Officers had noted that staff were being encouraged to attend the office 2-3 days a week, with managers organising their own departments and rotas to ensure sufficient resources were available each day of the working week. However, it was acknowledged that attendance had been lower than hoped and it was anticipated that the results of the Wiltshire Pension Fund staff engagement survey may highlight the reasons for this and address the reports of low levels of team morale.

Further questions were asked in respect of the lack of translatable tangible results for i-Connect despite it being stated that significant progress had been made. Officers noted that Swindon Borough Council’s onboarding had been paused, however the issues had been resolved and therefore, once more employers had been onboarded, tangible results could be collected for consideration at the next meeting of the Board.

Members sought clarification on the escalation process if employers consistently submitted delayed and/or a poor-quality information. It was explained that the Pensions Administration Strategy detailed this process, which was available to all employers, and as a last resort issues could be reported to the Pensions Regulator (tPR) or employers charged for any additional work created.

Members then queried point c) under the Fund Governance section of the Risk Register. Officers explained that the Council’s Procurement Department had undergone structural changes which had led to communication challenges during the transition. Furthermore, as procurement was a complex area, Fund officers naturally had a lower level of knowledge compared to the specialist procurement officers within the Council.

Officers then noted that within the Administrative KPIs, the remaining cases over SLA (Service Level Agreement) were those that were particularly complex and needed further investigation, hence the impact on performance against the KPIs. As such, once these were resolved, improvements would be seen, and officers were focussing on improving communications and contacting those affected members directly as much as possible. Furthermore, the KPIs were expected to remain low until the over SLA cases were all cleared.

At the conclusion of the discussion, it was:

Resolved:

1)    The Board noted the Fund updates and progress against the Business Plan 2023/24 key priorities.

2)    The Board endorsed the Risk Register in Appendix 2 and the summary of risk changes since the last review, as a true and fair view of the risks currently being experienced by the Fund and recommended that endorsement to the Committee.

3)    The Board noted the progress recorded on the SWAP audit actions logs and recommended any extension to action 6’s target date to 31 March 2024.