Agenda item

James Lake, Head of Finance – Statutory Accounting and Pension Fund, introduced the report highlighting the positive news that the transition project to move administration services from Surrey County Council (SCC) to Hampshire County Council (HCC) was progressing in accordance with the scheduled timetable and services with HCC went live on 27 September 2021. Officers noted the robust and efficient processes and the well-resourced and knowledgeable team at HCC; officers were confident that the new partnership would be successful and would be working closely with HCC to make sure any anomalies were ironed out and ongoing improvements were implemented. The Committee were introduced to Andy Lowe, Head of the Pensions Team at HCC.

Members sought assurances that instances of missed or delayed payments during the transition of administration services would be kept to an absolute minimum or avoided altogether. Officers informed Members that as part of the project there was an information transition flow whereby SCC were logging all cases and actions with HCC over the transition period to ensure nothing is missed that may have occurred mid-transition; this process would continue for a further two months following the transition date.

The Committee noted that the transition had only occurred very recently but queried whether progress was continuing as expected and that the necessary information was being received from SCC in a timely manner. Andy Lowe from HCC informed Members that the project was progressing comfortably and noted that although administration services had formally transitioned to HCC on 27 September, back-end services had moved over successfully the week before.

The Committee queried the level of contact information disseminated to members in the correspondence sent out earlier in September, specifically highlighting the lack of a telephone number for HCC for those not comfortable using email. Officers noted that they did not want members contacting HCC ahead of the go-live date when HCC would not have the appropriate records and would not have been able to assist; members would still have the SCC and Hillingdon contact details sent out previously and it was noted that HCC contact details would start to be disseminated from October 2021.

The Chairman thanked Hillingdon officers and the team at HCC for the work done on the transition project noting the successful transition thus far, the Committee hoped to see this manifest in the KPI’s going forward. The Committee were encouraged by the commitment from HCC to attend future meeting of the Pensions Committee and noted how refreshing it was to have an external provider attend the meeting.

Yvonne Thompson-Hoyte, Interim Pension Fund Manager, presented the general report on administration services. With regard to the number of members signed up to the self-service portal it was noted that officers would assess the numbers achieved by SCC during their tenure with an eye to monitor when HCC would achieve or surpass that number. Members would be encouraged to sign up to the new HCC self-service portal going forward.

Officers noted that HCC had been giving due diligence to the backlog of case items handed over from SCC. HCC had factored in a data cleansing piece of work to clear the backlog; it was noted that the Pensions Board had been monitoring, and would continue to monitor, the planned activities to cleanse and improve the accuracy of the data. It was confirmed that HCC’s reporting arrangements were monthly and feedback on how HCC were dealing with the backlog would be reported to both the Pensions Committee and Pensions Board. The Committee were confident that HCC would have the capacity to deal with the inherited backlog and efficiently administer the fund.

RESOLVED That the Pensions Committee noted the contents of the report.