To note the contents of the report.

Philip Boyton introduced the item and reminded the Board that the report covered the first quarter of the year up to 30 June 2021. He drew members’ attention to Table 1.4, which highlighted the performance of scheme employers using i-Connect and that the majority were being received within the key performance indicator timeframes. More work still needed to be done to improve the submission rates of schools and academies, as rates had fallen since the previous quarter. There had been no new employers who had signed up to i-Connect since the previous quarter but four more were imminent and this would result in a further 600 scheme member records receiving data on a monthly basis.

Members were told that a new KPI regarding deceased notification processing had been introduced in place of early leavers, as the latter KPI was consistently being met and it was no longer considered worthwhile monitoring. Details of the new KPI were available in table 1.5 of the report. It was clarified that statistics included those using the “Tell us Once” Government Service. An increase in the number of records being processed during June was noted. Regarding the communications in table 1.6, Philip Boyton said this would start from the following quarter. Discussions were taking place as to which statistics would be communicated.

Philip Boyton told the Board that a national database called the Pension Dashboard was being created, which would allow people to see all information relating to their pension entitlements. The creation of the Pension Dashboard was being driven by the government. Philip Boyton said quality of data would be important in ensuring this would be a success. He drew members’ attention to the results of the Pension Fund’s year four data quality exercise in consideration of the Pensions Regulator’s requirements, which in respect of Common Data had given an accuracy rate of 98.9 per cent in each of the last two years across a little over 750,000 individual pieces of data drawn from a little over 93,000 scheme member records. Although the accuracy rate had remained the same, the number of pieces of data this encompassed had increased so there was a higher total number of accurate pieces of data. Scheme Specific data had a 95 per cent accuracy rating across a little over 870,000 pieces of data, an improvement of 0.5 per cent. Philip Boyton stated his belief that the Fund was therefore in a good position; Kevin Taylor stated it was well within the requirements a Fund would be expected to be able to achieve.

Jeff Ford noted the i-Connect submission rate from Reading Borough Council listed in table 1.4 of the report was 66.6 per cent and asked if this was an anomaly. Philip Boyton said Reading regularly had a 100 per cent on-time submission rate and on this occasion the missing data had been submitted a few days later.  Philip said he did not believe there was a need to be concerned at any potential impact on payment of benefits. The Chairman asked if the Director of Resources at Reading would be aware this information would be put on public record. Kevin Taylor confirmed Reading had a representative on the Advisory Board so should be able to take this back to the relevant officer. Nikki Craig told the Board that RBWM had been in a similar position last year and this had been due to a misunderstanding following a change in the deadline date. Once the new dates were confirmed the submission rate returned to 100 per cent.

Members noted the contents of the report.