Agenda item

To consider the report

A comprehensive report was submitted by the Pensions Manager providing a general overview of pension administration over the past year, along with information on the work carried out over the period and updates on various projects:

·        Implementation of the McCloud obligation following a Supreme Court ruling.

·        Work relating to the 2025 actuarial valuation, which included holding an Employers' Forum to share valuation results with employers. It was noted that the new contributions would be formally confirmed at the end of March 2026.

·        Work relating to linking to the National Pension Dashboard ecosystem by 31/10/25.

·        Preparation of a response (on an all-Wales basis) to the UK Government's consultation on improvements to the Local Government Pension Scheme which would modernise the scheme, improve fairness and strengthen long-term member protections.

·        That work to ensure that the Gwynedd Pension Fund had met statutory requirements by issuing Annual Statements of Benefits had been completed at the end of July (before the closing date). Reference was also made to a presentation/avatar on the My Pension On-line portal which supported members to better understand the statements.

·        That data quality remained a priority for the Fund and ongoing developments were being implemented to further improve the quality. Reference was made to an example where the Fund was working with a professional tracing service to try and find the contact details of family members who had passed away or appeared to be a 'gone away address'.

·        Communication with members also remained a priority – a circular had been distributed with the 2025 Annual Statements of Benefits. It was noted that work was ongoing to redesign the Fund's website.

·        It was explained that as a result of internal changes being implemented to tasks where comprehensive performance data was not available, the Fund was providing assurances that there was no indication that service performance was deteriorating, but that the information was intended to be submitted when the revised procedures had been completed.

·        Work continued to ensure policies and compliance were in place in response to the requirements of Good Governance.

Reference was made to the continued success of 'My Pension On-line' noting that the portal's membership continued to grow steadily from month to month. It was reported that the Gwynedd Pension Fund had played a key role in supporting Heywood to develop a Welsh language version and that this version was to be rolled out to all Welsh LGPS funds by the end of the year.

Attention was drawn to the Service Satisfaction Survey which was sent to Members at the end of key processes, such as retirements and reimbursement payments, to gather views on the quality of service received. It was reported that 58 members had taken part in the survey between April 2025 and September 2025 with the result being very encouraging (95.13% of users strongly agreed or agreed that the quality was of a high standard and 97.26% strongly agreed or agreed that staff performance met a high standard).

Gratitude was expressed for the report.

During the ensuing discussion, the following observations were made by members:

·        The team were congratulated on their work and commitment.

·        Considerable work had been completed, and targets were being met.

·        The introduction of the avatar to explain the benefits statements was a positive addition.

·        Praised the work to ensure data quality – the standard was important for the order of the valuation.

·        A suggestion to send the Statement of Benefits to staff to check their personal details – this would ensure accuracy and an exercise for staff to take note of the statements.

In response to a question about how the Unit would proceed to seek to get more Members to subscribe to the website and how it would be possible to ensure that older residents were not ignored, it was noted that the team continued to encourage staff to use the website, and that statements on paper payslips referred to the information available by using the website.

In response to a question about the likelihood that there would be fewer enquiries to staff which would potentially lead to job threats due to increased use of technology, it was noted that workload, currently, had increased with increased requirements for information about the use of the portal and general enquiries. It was reiterated that there were problems with e-mails from the Unit going to Members' junk mail folders with 'Yahoo' and 'AOL' and although enquiries had been made with the companies, there was no possible solution.

In response to a question on whether there was sufficient staff to complete the governance elements, it was noted that staff numbers for the administrative elements were sufficient but that further support for the basic governance element could be considered.

RESOLVED

To accept and note the information.