Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received from William O’Connell, a co-opted member.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter.  The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 8 June 2022 as an accurate record.

RESOLVED

The minutes of the meeting held on 8 June 2022 were agreed as an accurate record.

To note the minutes of the Pension Fund Committee meetings/extraordinary meeting held on 20 June, 7 September, 6 October and 15 November 2022.

RESOLVED

The minutes and exempt minutes of the Pension Fund Committee meetings held on 20 June, 7 September, 6 October and 15 November 2022 were noted.

This paper sets out a summary of the performance of the Local Pension Partnership Administration in providing a pension administration service to the Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund. The Key Performance Indicators for the period April 2022 – September 2022, i.e., Quarter 1 (Q1) and Quarter 2 (Q2) inclusive, are shown in the Appendices, Quarter 3 results were not available at the time this report was written.

Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) gave a summary of the performance of the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA) in providing a pension administration service to the Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund (HFPF) in respect of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the period April 2022 – September 2022, i.e., Quarter 1 (Q1) and Quarter 2 (Q2) inclusive.

Councillor Rory Vaughan said he was pleased to see an improvement in LPPA’s service between Q1 and Q2.  Noting that the Pension Fund Committee (PFC) had scrutinised the performance of LPPA a few times and that some issues could be due to teething problem, he asked about the expected timing for LPPA’s quarterly Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance to meet the target of 95% having regard that it was on board for one year already.

Eleanor Dennis considered that the poor performance of LPPA in Q2 was mainly due to the lack of resources and priority to its planning and preparation of migrating to a new software platform for all LPPA clients.  In fact, the KPIs for Q3 and Q4 were relaxed to take into account the transition to the new system.  In terms of a recovery plan to meet the target, she noted that the LPPA would have presented their business plan to PFC and all clients by the end of the month. Councillor Vaughan believed that the PFC would keep LPPA “on-track” and asked Eleanor to convey this Board’s concerns to the LPPA.

ACTION: Eleanor Dennis

In response to Neil Newton’s enquiry, Eleanor Dennis confirmed that the internal migration had completed as planned in December 2022. The outgoing platform service provider had exited earlier than anticipated and this was why the migration had caused a bigger impact on the services that had been anticipated for all LPPA’s clients.

On the question of complaints received from scheme members raised by Neil Newton, Eleanor Dennis noted that there was not anything in the portal advising people on the quality of services.  The LPPA did ask callers to feedback on customers’ level of satisfaction which was 66% for Q2.  However, the statistics were not fund specific and hence did not represent scheme members of HFPF.  As regard how could a caller who had abandoned a call after waiting for 9 minutes express dissatisfaction, Eleanor noted that a formal complaint process was highlighted on the Fund's external website through which individuals might lodge complaints with the LPPA or HFPF as well as via the in-house pensions team.  The LPPA were reporting the helpdesk statistics on a fortnightly basis to the Head of Pensions. In fact, her team had received a higher number of complaints at the beginning of the migration. To minimise the negative experience of the scheme members during the migration, staff in her team did take on queries to resolve directly with LPPA on the members’ or employers’ behalf to help those members who wanted to get in touch or with issues to resolve during the poor performance period. 

Neil Newton remarked that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

This paper provides a summary of activity in key areas of pension administration for the Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund.

Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) introduced the key areas of the Pension Administration Update report.

In reply to the concerns of Councillor Vaughan and Neil Newton on log recommendation #24 which was yet to start, Eleanor Dennis advised that the Communication Policy was a statement which detailed how information on the Fund would be  made available ie via the LPPA portal and external website for reference of members and other stakeholders.  She said that the Policy would be updated in line with the LPPA and Fund communication methods in the scheme year 2023/24.  She confirmed once the policy was drafted it would be presented to the Pension Fund Committee and the log would be updated.  Neil recalled that such information used to be included in the Fund’s newsletter which was, in his opinion, a good channel to communicate with scheme members.  Eleanor agreed that there should be a pensioners’ newsletter issued by the LPPA and said she would find out the timeline of its issue with the LPPA.

ACTION: Eleanor Dennis

Neil Newton referred to log recommendation #5 which sought to actively seek to co-opt a non-voting Employee representative. As he understood, the Pensions Board had been set up by legislation to hold the PFC to account in terms of compliance, and to ensure effective and efficient administration of the HFPF. He noted from the minutes of previous PFC meetings that the agenda of the Board meeting duplicated what the PFC had already considered. As the recommendation was to co-opt a non-voting member onto the PFC, he questioned the need for the two bodies to co-exist and duplicate work.

Councillor Vaughan noted that the Pensions Board was set up by statute. He understood that it was not possible to co-opt voting scheme members onto the PFC.

Phil Triggs (Director of Treasury and Pensions) noted that according to the Council’s Constitution, the PFC could co-opt non-voting independent members. Currently, the two co-opted members of PFC were ex-councillors who could share their knowledge and experience with other members. He suggested it was possible to amend the Constitution and give co-opted members voting rights.

Members exchanged views on the way forward and considered it necessary to seek the views of the Governance and Legal in this regard.

ACTION: Governance

RESOLVED

That the Board noted the content of the report and looked forward to the issuing of the pensioners’ newsletter.

This item includes an appendix that contains exempt information. Discussion of the appendix will require passing the proposed resolution at the end of the agenda to exclude members of the public and press.

This paper provides the Pensions Board with a summary of the Pension Fund’s:

·       overall performance for the quarter ended 30 September 2022;

·       cashflow update and forecast,

·       assessment of risks and actions taken to mitigate these.

Phil Triggs (Director of Treasury and Pensions) provided a summary of the Pension Fund’s overall performance for the quarter ended 30 September 2022, its cashflow update and forecast, and assessment of risks and actions taken to mitigate these.

Members noted that the valuation of HFPF and the best funded scheme of Kensington & Chelsea stood at 105% and 154% respectively, based on the prevailing assumptions of valuation.  Phil Triggs added that there would be an exercise by the Government’s Actuary Department whereby all the client-based assumptions would be placed on a level-playing field to enable a meaningful comparison, probably from this April onward once all the processes being finalised. He said that the full report for the third quarter ending 31 December 2022 would be presented to the PFC at its meeting on 28 February 2023.

The Chair asked about the purpose of the ESG dashboard. Phil Triggs noted that it was a product developed by the LBHF to provide further accountability and allow members of the Fund to explore the impact of its investments.  Being well received at the LGC Conference in Leeds in September 2022, the dashboard was anticipated to become a marketable item to generate some income for the Fund.

RESOLVED

That the Board noted the update.

To note the dates of future meetings:

·       7 June 2023

·       6 February 2024

Members noted the dates of future meetings:

·       7 June 2023

·       6 February 2024