The Surrey Local Pension Board met and noted all the reports that had been provided to it, including the updates on the MySurrey project and the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions issue. The Board recommended the approval of the draft communications policy statement for 2024/25 to the Pension Fund Committee.

MySurrey Issues

The Surrey Pension Team reported that it has identified approximately 1,200 members of the Surrey Pension Fund whose contributions have been recorded incorrectly as a result of ongoing issues with the implementation of the MySurrey project. The Pension Team expressed confidence that these issues would be resolved by the end of March, partly due to the direct involvement of the Head of Service Delivery at Surrey Pension Team, Tom Lewis, in ensuring that the necessary resources are dedicated to the project. Lewis reported that 500 cases will be rectified in the February payroll, with the remainder expected to be resolved by the end of March. The Board requested that it receives a full update on the issues at its next meeting.

Guaranteed Minimum Pensions

Tom Lewis reported that the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions¹ reconciliation work had to be paused.

The decision has been taken to postpone the delivery of this work prior to pension increase and address a number of issues that have arisen ... during the final stages of preparing the data for rectification, a number of unexpected discrepancies were identified during quality assurance checking.

Lewis stated that he expects a first draft outlining the key issues with the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions work will be available for the Pension Team to review within four weeks. The Board requested an update on the matter at its next meeting.

Communication Policy Statement

The Board was asked to review the draft Communication Policy Statement for 2024/25. The LGPS Senior Officer, Neil Mason, explained that the document was more a statement of intent than a formal policy, and confirmed that the Surrey Pension Team was working on a separate, more formal policy regarding its communications. The Board recommended that the draft statement be approved by the Pension Fund Committee at its next meeting.

Pension Fund Committee Meeting Summary

The Board received and noted a summary of the decisions that were made at the most recent meeting of the Surrey Pension Fund Committee on 15 December 2023. During discussion of the summary, Mason stated that the Surrey Pension Fund is now considered to be Sharia compliant. He also noted that the Scheme Advisory Board² has concluded that any changes to employer contribution rates should not be made for economic reasons alone.

The economic basis on which the funding rate is determined should not be one of those [reasons for an employer to approach a pension fund to have its contribution rates reviewed on an interim basis].

Administration Performance Report and Update

The Board received and noted the Administration Performance Report and Update, which detailed the Pension Team's key activities. Tom Lewis reported that the team has exceeded its target for reducing legacy cases by the end of 2023. The target was 25%, and the actual reduction was 45%. He explained that a planned procurement of external services to progress the remaining transfers and aggregations has now been abandoned in favour of continuing the work in-house.

After reviewing this situation and exploring the alternative options available, the decision has been made to undertake this work in house after the success of the internal Legacy Team to date.

Risk Register

The Board received and noted the Risk Register update, which showed no change to the overall risk position from the previous quarter. Head of Accounting and Governance, Paul Titcomb, reported that the risk score for ongoing issues related to the MySurrey project remained at 16, but that the team was confident of securing a reduction in this score by the time of the next board meeting.

Business Continuity Plan

The Board received and noted an interim update on the Surrey Pension Team's Business Continuity Plan³. Titcomb reported that the team is working with Surrey County Council's Emergency Management Team to establish a pension fund-specific Business Continuity Plan.

Internal Audit Update

The Board received and noted the Internal Audit Update, which provided a summary of the work that had been carried out by the team during the previous quarter. Principal Auditor, Liam Pippard, reported that the audit of the Pension Team's cyber security arrangements had been completed and received a Reasonable Assurance opinion.

External Audit Update

The Board received and noted the External Audit Update, which provided information on the current status of the external audit of the Pension Fund's 2022/23 accounts. Titcomb reported that the audit work was well progressed and that no material amendments to the Pension Fund accounts were expected.

The Pensions Regulator - General Code of Practice

The Board received and noted a report on the Pensions Regulator's new General Code of Practice. The Governance Manager, Adele Seex, confirmed that the new Code replaces the existing Code of Practice (no.14) for Public Service Pension Schemes and brings together ten existing Codes of Practice into one document. The Code will come into effect on 27 March 2024.

The Pensions Regulator - Scheme Return

The Board received and noted a report that confirmed that the Surrey Pension Team had submitted its annual scheme return to the Pensions Regulator on 8 January 2024.

LGPS Update

The Board received and noted an update on recent developments in the Local Government Pension Scheme, which included information on the McCloud remedy, the abolition of the Lifetime Allowance⁴, the Pension Dashboard Programme, and the Pensions Regulator's new General Code of Practice.