Agenda item

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 report which covered a summary of activity in key areas of pension administration for the Council’s Pension Fund. LPPA had partnered with another organisation to perform data validation checks, 460 in total. In preparation for the Pension dashboard readiness in October 2025, LPPA were implementing more automated processes. Currently processes were often delayed due to missing records and officers would have to go through and check every record, but now this would be done automatically in most cases. He explained the four key stages to the retirement process, the leaver notification, the quotation, member forms and then the payment stage. There were delays at each stage for a number of reasons, this could be a late notification from a member, poor data quality also led to delays. Online retirement forms had been looked at as errors on the forms caused delay. Automation was being tested at the payment stage to check whether the bank details given linked to a genuine account and matched the name of the member.

Councillor Florian Chevoppe-Verdier thanked officers for their work and commented that the waiting time for members was an important metric. He asked whether there was a preview for Q1 2025 regarding the number of calls. Eleanor Dennis explained that the performance was likely to be challenged due to the continuing heavy legislative agenda on pensions. Which was prompting more members to call and ask questions. It was positive to see LPPA try to implement more automation to try to minimise the impact on resources and make processes more efficient. She added that it would be no surprise if the number of calls to the helpdesk rose.

Councillor Florian Chevoppe-Verdier questioned whether the new dashboard would provide LBHF data that the Committee could see live. John Crowhurst confirmed that this would not be the case but that there would be monthly and quarterly reports.

Councillor Florian Chevoppe-Verdier mentioned that he often asked about the level of support being provided by LBHF to the LPPA and he would be told it was a high level of support, he asked whether the situation was still the same. Eleanor Dennis explained that there was a stabilising in the number of cases but not in the extent of which the LBHF team are involved. She gave examples of retirement and bereavement cases that needed involvement by the LBHF pensions team and that hadn’t been dealt with as proactively as they could be. She commented that the number of cases had plateaued but that the level of involvement from the Pensions team was higher than it should be.

Councillor Florian Chevoppe-Verdier asked whether there was data regarding what percentage of members were using the online routes for their pension. Chris Batts (LPPA representative) told the Committee that he did not have that data to hand, but that he would provide it after the meeting. The Chair commented that it would be very interesting for the committee to see this data.

                                                                                                            Action: LPPA

Peter Parkin questioned whether members would still be able to speak to a person once the LPPA had completed their automation strategies. Chris Batts clarified that Digital was to be the preference but that it was not the only way. Members still had a phone number and a contact form they could use to get through to a person. He added that some processes couldn’t be fully automated.

Peter Parkin queried what would happen if a member was not able to advocate for themselves, could they have designated individual to help. Chris Batts confirmed that there were processes in place for this.

David Hughes, (Director of Audit, Fraud, Risk and Insurance), wondered how the new dashboard would improve members experience when they had lots of different pensions. Chris Batts explained that the dashboard would provide contact routes for all different schemes.

RESOLVED

The Pension Fund Committee noted the contents of the report.