This meeting was about reviewing the Council’s activities related to administering the London Borough of Hounslow Pension Fund. The agenda included an update on training, a report on the performance of the Council’s pensions administration, and a review of the Council’s compliance with the Pensions Regulator’s (TPR) General Code of Practice (GCOP).¹

Pension Fund Administration Performance

The Board was scheduled to review a report on the performance of the Council's pensions administration function. The Council’s pensions administration is outsourced to the West Yorkshire Pension Fund (WYPF). The report for discussion showed that the WYPF largely met its target of completing at least 85% of pension administration tasks within their target timescale.

The McCloud remedy, workload volumes and staffing levels is impacting performance in several areas in the medium and low priority work areas, particularly in Interfund Linking, Transfer processes and Early Leavers.

The report also showed that there was an underspend of £535,000 on the pensions administration budget. This underspend was partly due to staff vacancies. The report suggested that the key was:

finding a balance between clearing backlog, whilst also managing new cases.

Pension Board Forward Plan 2024/25 and 2025/26

The Board was scheduled to review and adopt the Forward Plan for the London Borough of Hounslow Pension Fund for the year 2025/26. The report for discussion also included a summary of the training that had taken place during the year. The report showed that a mandatory training day was scheduled for 10 June 2025.

Pension Board Monitoring Report

The Board was scheduled to review a report on the monitoring activity that took place at the Pension Fund Panel meeting on 4 December 2024. The report for discussion showed that Atlas Cleaning Ltd, Nourish Catering and May Harris had been issued with late payment notices. The report also included a briefing note on the requirements for the Pension Dashboard Programme. The Pension Dashboard Programme requires pension schemes to connect their data to a central system, enabling scheme members to view information about all of their pensions in one place.

TPR General Code of Practice (GCOP) Review

The Board was scheduled to review an assessment of the Council’s compliance with The Pension Regulator’s (TPR) General Code of Practice (GCOP). The report for discussion showed that there were some aspects of the GCOP that the Council was not yet fully compliant with. This included aspects of the management of advisers and service providers, scheme governance, and scheme administration.

To develop a strategy for the long-term administrative objectives of the scheme and agree a process for delivering these with the administrator by 31/3/25.