Agenda item

11:00

This report updates the Committee on the key administration issues including service performance measurement, the debt recovery process and any write offs agreed in the last quarter.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

a)     Note the progress against the Administration objectives for the year;

b)     Decide what, if any, additional information they require to be included in this report; and

c)     Agree the write off of the 5 historic debts in Section 1 of Annex 4 totalling £14,747.35; and

d)     Note the write off of the historic debts included in Section 2 of Annex 4 totalling £3,803.44, and the current debts of £43.66 written off as agreed under the Scheme of Delegation.

The Chair began by again thanking Sally Fox for 21 years of service, always going above and beyond the call of duty in one of the most difficult areas of the Council. The Committee thanked Sally Fox and wished her well in her retirement.

Sally Fox, Pension Service Manager, presented her last Administration Report to the Committee. The Committee were informed that a further two Officers would also be retiring in the quarter ending March 2024. There had also been one promotion so staffing was an ongoing issue and there would be a large recruitment drive in the New Year. The only point to raise on the Performance Statistics would be that the workload was increasing especially with the number of leavers in the Team. The data quality scores that would be included this quarter had been delayed as the Pension Regulator had moved the deadline for the annual return from November to January. The additional time was being used to tidy up the addresses in order to meet the regulators requirements. The update would be presented at the next meeting. The contribution monitoring process which had been introduced was showing positive results by engaging more quickly and consistently with scheme employers. The late returns were slowly reducing. The two projects to inform the Committee about were the transfer of AVC provider which was almost finalised and the McCloud work that had already been discussed within the meeting. Sally also discussed the management of historic debt and the actions that were being taken. The report showed that invoices accounting to under £15K that had been statute barred from recovery and the most significant amount had related to a deceased pensioner where the money could not be retrieved. Invoices amounting to just under £4K, charges had been applied to scheme employers in line with the administration strategy and these had not been paid. This would be mitigated in the future as the debt recovery team were now working very closely with the pension team and recovering debt. Section 3 referred to the invoices currently being sued, and section 4 referred to a situation where the scheme employer had gone into liquidation and the debt would have fallen back to the Council through valuation. Section 5 related to another deceased pensioner where instalments were being made but had stopped.  Pension Services were seeking to identify a suitable relative to pursue the remaining debt. Finally, £43.66 had been written off for Members that had died and the debt was no longer retrievable.

The Chair asked about the scheme delegation and who wrote off the debt and was advised that the Pension Service Manager wrote off debt and reported to the Committee.

RESOLVED: that the Committee noted the progress against the Administration objectives for the year; determined no additional information was required to be included in this report; Agreed the write off of the 5 historic debts in Section 1 of Annex 4 totalling £14,747.35; and Noted the write off of the historic debts included in Section 2 of Annex 4 totalling £3,803.44, and the current debts of £43.66 written off as agreed under the Scheme of Delegation.