Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received from Neil Newton who had also resigned his position on the Board.  Members noted that a replacement would be identified shortly.

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 February 2023 as an accurate record.

Responding to the members’ enquiries, Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) noted that the rates of abandoned helpdesk calls would be covered in her later report on the agenda. She also advised that according to the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA), they did not intend to explore call-back service at the moment but it would be something to look at in the future if required.

RESOLVED

The minutes of meeting held on 8 February 2023 were agreed as an accurate record.

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

To note the minutes of the extraordinary meeting and meeting of the Pension Fund Committee held on 24 January and 28 February 2023 respectively.

Referring to the meeting of the Pension Fund Committee (PFC) on 28 February 2023, the Chair asked about the progress of the formal letter agreed to be sent out to LPPA for better performance.  Eleanor Dennis noted that the formal letter might be sent pending an improvement of the key performance data for the period between April to June (Quarter 1) 2023. 

As regards the promised interim reports, Eleanor Dennis said that LPPA had provided some regular reports including key performance updates for the period April and May 2023, which had been circulated to members of the PFC.

RESOLVED

The minutes and exempt minutes of the PFC meetings held on 24 January and 28 February 2023 were noted.

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

Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) presented the report which provided a summary of activity in key areas of pension administration for the Hammersmith and Fulham Pension Fund (HFPF). She confirmed that the rate of abandoned helpdesk calls was 3%.

Councillor Nikos Souslous expressed concern that the LPPA no longer recorded call data in respect of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF). Echoing his disappointment, Eleanor Dennis noted that after sharing this concern to the LPPA’s Managing Director (MD), they had hoped to re-introduce the feature and make available data on calls per client in the future. 

In reply to Councillor Souslous’ question about the monthly submission process, Eleanor Dennis noted that about 78% of LBHF’s employers had attended the relevant online training sessions offered by LPPA. The Fund employers would be engaged in submitting monthly returns following the “end of year” process due by 28^th of April. On the Chair’s further enquiry about the number of outstanding submissions after the deadline, Eleanor Dennis explained that the switch from annual to monthly returns would help enhance data quality.  David Hughes (Director of Audit, Fraud, Risk and Insurance) added that the Pension Administration team was working together with the Fund employers to push forward this monthly submission initiative with a view to improving data quality.

William O’Connell noted from his portal account that his Annual Benefit Statement for the year 2020/21 which should have been issued by the previous administrator was missing. Eleanor Dennis agreed to follow up.

ACTION: Eleanor Dennis

Noting from the report that the LPPA had acknowledged their unsatisfactory service but were committed to improving the service going forward with initiatives such as the introduction of a client relationship manager, a centralised mailbox and client forums in 2023, the Chair asked about the progress of these initiatives. Eleanor Dennis noted that the initiatives did not work out as expected, for example, the client relationship function was not effective and the centralised mailbox framework was pre-mature.  Her team needed to process some issues/cases directly with the respective teams rather than via the client management forum such as those related to transfers.  David Hughes added that feedback had been made during the meetings with the LPPA’s MD.

With reference to the frustration expressed by PFC members about increasing the budget for the pension administration service despite its poor performance, the Chair was concerned whether the LBHF could challenge the LPPA’s proposed increase of 2022/23 budget from £384,000 to £399,000. Eleanor Dennis responded that PFC members had also raised concerns about the significant rising cost per member.  However, LPPA was a non-profit making organisation which had lost 32% resources due to staff turnover and had difficulties in recruiting experienced staff, and the costs were increasing due to increased IT costs and costs for additional resources as well as to retain staff. While striving to meet the increased IT/system costs.  She stressed that in paying the additional fee for LPPA’s service, the LBHF had sought to challenge its under-performance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

This paper sets out a summary of the performance of the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA) in providing a pension administration service to the Hammersmith & Fulham Pension Fund.

Eleanor Dennis (Head of Pensions) presented the report which summarised the performance of the Local Pension Partnership Administration (LPPA) in providing a pension administration service to the HFPF during the period between October 2022 and March 2023, i.e, from Q2 to Q4 of 2022/23. 

Addressing Councillor Nikos Souslous’ concern of including helpdesk performance as one of the KPIs, Eleanor Dennis noted that although the set of KPIs remained the same since LPPA coming on board, its MD agreed to consider including helpdesk data as one of the performance indicators in the future.

Councillor Souslous referred to concerns on the difference between the average wait time and the longest wait time range from over 2 minutes for helpdesk calls and its fluctuating trend of more than 15 minutes, and asked how this had been taken care of.  Eleanor Dennis said she had consulted the LPPA’s Strategic Director on the big gap between the two extremes and undertook to relay any feedback received to the Board. She further noted that Dec 22 had the lowest number of calls but a big increase in average wait time which was due to Christmas break/annual leave.

ACTION: Eleanor Dennis

Replying to Councillor Souslous’ further question on recording and processing the cases received before the Christmas gap/annual leave, Eleanor Dennis recalled her challenge on LPPA’s performance in last December that while understanding the stretch of resources during system migration, the LBHF, as a client, would expect LPPA to be resilient and still able to deliver in line with the Service Level Agreement (SLA) targets.

The Chair sought the reason why the processing of death cases was particularly poor in Q3 of 2022/23. Eleanor Dennis advised that there was an incorrect trigger of recording the cases before the department had got the relevant information for processing.  As the system clock had already started ticking before the processing, these cases hence failed to meet the SLA target of 5 working days.  David Hughes (Director of Audit, Fraud, Risk and Insurance) appreciated that the LPPA had acknowledged the impact on reporting and taken steps to rectify the situation.

The Chair referred to page 58 of the agenda pack and asked how the SLA targets in respect of the performance standard had been set.  Eleanor Dennis noted that the service levels for individual case types were set out in the discharge agreement drawn up by LPPA, with SLA targets ranging 5, 10 or 15 days.  She added that during the report period from January to March 2023, the KPI target of 95% was met by 4 case types.

The Chair reiterated the PFC’s request to review the discharge agreement.  He also requested for a copy of the discharge agreement to enhance members’ understanding of the SLA and KPI targets. David Hughes clarified that PFC had not asked to review the discharge agreement but rather asked if there was a clause for financial recompense for poor performance, which there was not. The Committee had accepted the proposed increase  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

This item includes appendices that contain exempt information. Discussion of the appendices 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 31 December 2022;

·       cashflow update and forecast; and

·       assessment of risks and actions taken to mitigate these.

Exclusion of the public and press

The Committee resolved, under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following item of business, on the grounds that it contains the likely disclosure of exempt information, as defined in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the said Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Siân Cogley (Pension Fund Manager) provided the Board with a summary of the Pension Fund’s overall performance for the quarter ended 31 December 2022, the cashflow update and forecast, and an assessment of risks and actions taken to mitigate the above.

She also shared the updates made available for PFC meeting on 13 June 2023 that over the quarter to 31 March 2023:

• the market value of the assets had increased by £27.4m to £1,280.8m;
• the Fund had underperformed its benchmark net of fees by 1.1%, delivering a return of 2.5% over the quarter; and
• over the year to 31 March 2023, the fund had underperformed its benchmark by 0.3%, returning -1.7% overall.

Officers and members discussed the exempt appendices in private session.

RESOLVED

The Board noted the update.

The next meeting will be held on 6 February 2024.

Members noted the next meeting would be held on 6 February 2024.

The Committee is invited to resolve, under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, that the public and press be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of the following items of business, on the grounds that they contain the likely disclosure of exempt information, as defined in paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the said Act, and that the public interest in maintaining the exemption currently outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

See item 7.