Agenda item

The Head of Wiltshire Pension Fund will present an “immediate payments” update following transfer of the fund payment process to Oracle.

James Franklin, Pension Administration Lead presented an “immediate payments” update following transfer of the fund payment process to Oracle. The update covered that there had been delays in Oracle going live, which meant that the first batch of payments failed and as a result emergency payments had to be made. Over 100 emergency payments went through but then when the payments were loaded to Oracle some were not removed meaning that circa 67 potential members received duplicate payments. It was outlined that the Accounts team now have received full data to work out the number of duplicates. The process had started to contact those who received duplicate payments, with the majority happy to return the money, however this had had a large impact on the Member Services Team having to deal with the issues. A full review would be conducted regarding the issue with an update set to be provided on what payments were made and what was missed.

It was outlined that the issue was caused as the template designed to load payments to Oracle was not working and only came three days before the Oracle go live date.  Furthermore, due to resource issues within the Evolve Team, communications were limited meaning it was not possible to obtain updates or manage the expectations of members. A positive development was noted that the internal payment system had now gone live and that there should not be any new members affected.

The Committee discussed the update, with assurance provided that the accounting team had all the necessary data and had been working to make sure that the code mapping was correct for ledgers. Assurance was sought by the Committee, to which officers noted that following the issue, Oracle now could run dummy payrolls and the risk was consequently lower with further checks also in place. It was outlined that risk is further being minimised by the pensions increase being ran on Altair and with Oracle to then be provided with a file to upload.

The impact caused by the duplicate payments was discussed and that the issue had impacted on all work within the department, however this would be mitigated by prioritising work. Feedback was also provided by the Committee that there was an impression that the process had taken a last-minute approach and that there had been a failure of communication.

It was questioned how further issues could be prevented from taking place when pensioner payroll is migrated to Oracle in 2024, to which officers were confident with the steps in place and that there would be more reporting requirements with notes to be shared to the Committee to provide comfort. A second meeting would be taking place with the Evolve team in January, after which a summary would be provided.

It was questioned whether the Evolve team formally understood their responsibilities, to which officers stated that they were aware of what was required and that a review would be required to understand what had gone right and wrong in the current project to prevent it from happening again.

The Committee recommended that that the Fund obtained a project plan from Evolve to show that the pensions requirements (including the uploads required for pensions increase) were clearly included in the plan. 

At the conclusion of debate, it was,

Resolved:

The Committee agreed:

·       Based on the experience of the Fund during the initial live rollout of Oracle, to recommend to the SWAP auditor’s that within the scoping of the Payroll Migration Audit – Phase II, particular emphasis is placed on ensuring that the operational requirements of the Fund are at the centre of any audit recommendations.