Transcript

My name is Councillor Ross Melton, Chair of this Committee. Let me first apologise for my tardiness. Before we begin, some housekeeping points to cover. Please can officers introduce themselves prior to speaking for the first time and would everybody speak up so that I can hear you loud and clear. Please do use the microphones. This meeting is being live streamed on YouTube by taking part in your consenting to be recorded. There are tea, coffee and biscuits available in the staff kitchen on my right and toilets are available through the main reception. You will need an H&F security badge to get through to the kitchen. If a fire alarm stands, either continuously or intermittently, I will adjourn the meeting. Please leave the meeting in an orderly fashion by the staff exit, which is behind me on my right. Officers will direct you to the assembly point on Riverside Gardens. Excellent. First. Apologies for officers. Good to see you. I believe we are all here. Excellent. Declarations of interest. Do any members have any declarations of interest? Marvellous. Excellent. Then our minutes from our previous meeting. Do members approve the open and exempt minutes from our previous meeting on the 5th of March? Fabulous. Then, without further ado, Eleanor, if we can press on to key performance indicators. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you, Chair. Eleanor Dennis, Head of Pensions. So, the first paper sets out the key performance indicators for the pension and registration provided by LPPA for quarter four, the period January to March 2025 inclusive, which will now be presented by John Crowhurst, Director from LPPA. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Good evening. So, an update on the key performance indicators for quarter four. So, the overall target was exceeded 98.7%, and the target was exceeded against all of the individual key processes. I can also confirm to the committee that for April, the overall performance was 99.08%. So, again, consistent and strong SLA performance, which is good and positive to see. The help desk wait times remain below the average wait time we target, which is four minutes. We did see a slight increase in calls in January from Hammersmith Pension Fund members. We always see an increase in calls across all of the funds that we support in January. Typically, that's just because after the holiday period, we receive more calls anyway, and unfortunately, we do have more bereavements recorded in January, so we do receive more calls into our help desk. We have noticed a slight drop in calls over the last 12 months by about 11% overall. That isn't consistent across every single pension fund that we support, but for your fund, it is. So, what we're doing is looking into that a little bit more to try and understand why. We suspect it could be because members are starting to use the online facilities that we've made available, and in particular, use the website that we've been consistently updating since you moved across to us. So, we're hoping to be able to provide officers with more information regarding that drop in calls. From a monthly return submission perspective, I think we reported when I was here six months ago, and I can see in your minutes from the last meeting, that employers continue to be engaged with submitting monthly returns to us was really, really positive. So, as of March this year, we've got 96.4% of the data that we need to process for the triennial valuation and to prepare the annual benefit statements. So, we're in a really, really good position. Just to say that there are still subsequently queries, sometimes from the returns that are submitted to us, that are available in the employer's work trays in our employer portal. So, we engage with your employers to try and resolve those queries, and where we need to escalate, those that are not engaging, we will speak to Eleanor and her team as an escalation point. But in the main, information flow has improved and continues to be good. Moving on to the service metrics that we report, some of which is in the performance pack and some is not, but I'll give you some intel into that. So, the complaints that we received continue to trend down. So, that's across both Hammersmith-specific pension fund members and all across the LGPS funds that we work with. And so, I've got some data just to share. So, as a percentage of the new cases received, it was 0.52% of casework in April 24, and now it's 0.34% in April 25. So, we're seeing less, less complaints coming through. We made a change. You may recall, I mentioned the last time I was here, that we made a change to the way that we managed complaints. We had a dedicated team. We decided not to manage the complaints in that way. We have the case owners and the SME resolving the complaints. That, again, has had a positive impact on the way that we handle them. So, in April 24, around 39% of complaints were resolved in 30 days. In April 2025, it's up at 78% and continues to trend in the right direction. I think it's unrealistic to expect it to be 100% given the nature of some of the complaints that we receive. But I'm really pleased that people are getting responses to those complaints quicker than they were previously. And the last thing I'll mention on the complaints is we have established a complaints board within our operation. So, that is led by our head of data and member experience and some SMEs, where essentially what they do is a deep dive into some complaints received. They look at the root cause. They look at the trends. And they look at management actions in order to make that whole process better, essentially. Our plan is to share the results of the complaints board at the end of quarter one. So, Eleanor will see that in July. And obviously, we're happy for that to be discussed at future committee meetings. But we're really pleased that that's now also being established to really understand the service that we're providing to your fund members. Again, not specifically in the report, but I did speak last time. I talked about the number of people that retire that receive a payment within 30 days. And you'll probably also recall that there's a direct correlation between how quickly we're notified and how quickly we can make payment. So, again, I'm just looking at the last quarter. If I look across all of the LGPS funds that we work with, if we were notified on time, i.e. we were given a month's notice and there was no ABC, 73% of retirees received the payment within 30 days, which has been pretty consistent for some time now. For Hammersmith specifically, it was 83%. And I suspect that that is a direct correlation between the information flow between us and your employers. Now, what we're asking ourselves at the moment is, well, what about the 20, 27% that didn't receive a payment and did, in theory, follow a happy path? So, we're still investigating that. There are some things that would have impacted our ability to make payment. But I'm not going to go into too much detail because my colleague, Chris Batts, is here to talk about some of the things that we've been doing to improve that. And then, lastly, I will talk about the retirement satisfaction. So, again, significant improvements in 12 months. In April, 24, 58% satisfied. In April, 25, 81% satisfied across all the LGPS funds. Hammersmith specific, 87%. Now, I'll caveat that slightly to say that, obviously, Hammersmith numbers, because sometimes they're lower in volume. It can be quite volatile what happens with that number, but I was really, again, positive results there. Looking at the retirement satisfaction specifically, I don't think it's one thing that's contributed to that improvement in satisfaction. I think it's a number of things. One will be the information flow from employers. Two will be the improvements that we've made to our website. And our engagement team have done a lot with employers to pass on to employees so that they understand what to expect in the retirement journey. We have a member panel that reviewed our retirement letters and options, which, again, we've refined and made them easier to navigate and follow. And Chris will talk a little bit more about some of the automation and self-service that we've delivered. So, I think it's a combination of things that have led to that position now. So, that was all I was going to say on that part, Chair, and I'm happy to take any questions from the committee. Let me first say it's lovely to see you again, John, and welcome, Chris. Open up to the floor, please. Thank you very much. And that's good to see continuous improvement. I'm sorry, Councillor Adam Peter-Lang. Pardon me. Is there anything else that this committee could do to support in that continual improvement? And you also mentioned the complaints board, which is something new for me. Are you able to just describe that a little bit more, what that is and how that might work and who's on it? Yeah, so the complaints board is led within my operational team. So, I've got a role that's head of data and member experience, and he leads that complaints board. We have senior operations managers that are running the casework teams on that complaints board. What they are doing with their SMEs, their subject matter experts, is doing a deep dive into some of the complaints received to identify why the member complained, what the root cause was, to see if there's any consistent trends that are coming through, and then, obviously, to pull together almost like a management action plan so that we can focus in on the areas that we think will have a material impact on the service providing to those members. In response to your question, Councillor, on what the committee can do to support, and I'll probably cover this in the next agenda item slightly, but information flow and data is key to us being able to provide a good service. Positively, your employers have engaged with the monthly return process, and I would say that Eleanor and her team are giving us the support from an escalation perspective where we're not quite getting what we need from some employers, which is a small number. On that level of employee data, a stat that jumped out to me was, you mentioned you had, was it 93% response from employers prior to the triennial review coming up? 96%. 96% as of the 31st of March. Remind the committee members and I, how does that compare to our previous triennial reviews? Perhaps Eleanor you'd like to weigh in as well. It's a much better position. So what we've done between the last valuation and now is we've reinforced the pension administration strategy whereby any members that are not, any employers, sorry, that are not supplying us with data in a timely manner, we've instigated a potential fine. So I've warned them that there will be a financial penalty for them not complying. It is part of their responsibility and obligation as being part of the fund. Also, since the last valuation, we didn't have the monthly return process. So that's made it much more efficient in terms of collating that data because we do it on a monthly basis as opposed to the end of the year, which used to happen before. So I think they're the two key drivers there. I don't know if you want to add anything else, John. No, yeah, exactly what you said. The monthly returns has been really helpful because we can reconcile on a monthly basis rather than it'd be 12 months. That's made a significant difference. Excellent. Thanks for that clarification. Peter, please. Thank you, Chair. My name's Peter Parkin. I am the co-opted member and looking at it from the point of view of the unions. With the 30-day process, what typically slows that process down or what are the typical obstacles where people don't receive their payments? And also, what do you plan to do or what do you do to engage with the customer? Yeah, thank you, Peter. So typically, if someone hasn't been paid within 30 days, it's because we didn't receive the notification on time. And I think I mentioned previously, if a member does have an AVC, this investment process does take some time. It's about 22 days. It adds to the process. It's something that we've been looking at. We've been speaking to AVC providers on to see if we can improve that information flow. But there obviously is a process on their side that has to be followed. So obviously, we just have to tell the member to expect that as part of the process so that if they need to make provision for income for a month, additionally, to do that. There are other factors as well. And I think it's around the 27% that didn't follow HappyPuff. We're looking at that at the moment. Now, there's a few things at play. So sometimes it's because we've received a notification on time, but there's subsequent queries between us and the employer. So that comes back to the interaction within the portal. What our teams are trying to do, I wouldn't say we've cracked this yet, but it's something that they are looking at. And this probably has been picked up as part of the complaints board, if I'm honest, is we can do more to triage the work. So, for example, we've got ongoing retirements across lots of funds. If we can see what people's retirement dates are, if we can see that somebody retired a month or two months ago and still hasn't received their payment, well, then let's triage that so that we can do more to resolve it, as opposed to someone who's still got six months for retirement, where we can prioritise work in different ways to make sure that everyone receives payments quicker. So, and I'm not going to go into too much detail deliberately, Peter, because Chris is going to talk about some of the other factors that slow down the process. So post is an obvious example, but I won't go into too much detail, if that's okay. Perfect. Can I ask members to note the report? Then let's press on to a pensions administration update, perhaps. Thank you, Chair. So this paper sets out a summary of key activity in the pension administration and operations of the Hammersmith and Fulham Pension Fund, particularly today, including LPPA's key initiatives, in terms of data quality, ESIP and regulatory updates. So I'll hand over to John and Chris, who will detail that to the committee. Thank you, Elena. Yes, so I'm going to cover the data project specifically, which is some items that's in the Packford stuff. And I'm going to hand over to Chris, who's going to cover the efficiency and service improvement programme and some of the regulatory updates. So with the data projects, as I mentioned, it's key to us being able to provide a good service. So we initiated the project late summer last year, where we wanted to put something in place that would enable us to check the integrity of the data that we hold on behalf of your fund members on a more regular basis, rather than just in line with the triennial valuation cycle that your fund actuary performs. So we've partnered with another organisation that have got a product that plugs directly into our pensions administration system. And effectively, what it does is it performs a number of data validation checks. There's about 460 in total. And what it's doing is it's checking a number of things. One is, is data present? Is it there? Two is, is it present and does it look correct? And three, some of the checks are aligned to what your fund actuary will do. So, for example, if you've got a pay figure in the service for a particular member and the pension looks way, way beyond the tolerance, it flags it to us for us to check. So we've plugged that in, essentially. We've tested it. It's gone live with our teams. My teams have got a series of dashboards that are now monitored. I won't go into too much detail on all of them, but we've got one is looking at pensions dashboard readiness. One is looking at the McLeod remedy, which we've spoken about previously. And one is looking at things that would need to be checked for the triennial valuation. And there's others as well. Now, we've had an initial conversation with Eleanor. So we've only given Eleanor the key highlights at this stage as to what we've found. And the plan, again, at the end of quarter one will be for us to provide a full summary of the dashboards. What does the data look like? What is the integrity of the data that we hold? And what essentially is the plan to rectify that? There's a few things at play. So some data that we hold, we haven't got the ability to validate ourselves. An example would be we don't know if somebody's changed address. So we will have to engage a third party to do that work for us, which we will do. But there's other activity that we've identified where there are things on records that need to be cleansed. So the position that we essentially want to get to is if one of my team comes to run a retirement calculation or run in a bulk process, like producing annual benefit statements, producing pensions increase, the automation that Chris is going to talk to, the member self-service that Chris is going to talk to. We want that all just to run. And at the moment, sometimes it fails because there's something missing on the record. So essentially what we're doing is checking every single record, some records that haven't been looked at for a number of years because they haven't had to be looked at, that we're almost going to future-proof so that all of the initiatives that we're trying to deliver now will work in the future. So it's a huge exercise, an undertaking, but I think it's relevant and we need to do it. And it will become part of our business-as-usual service in the future. So I think that's in a nutshell, and I'm happy to take any questions from the committee. Thank you, Chair. So I want to group my questions because the first two items are so similar. My first point is to say a continued well done to both the LBPA and the pensions team in the Council for reaching those targets. It's lowering the waiting times as well for our residents. It's really, really important, and I hope that that continues. I have a number of questions, but I won't throw them at you all at once. I suppose, do you have a bit of a preview for quarter 1 to 25? Could you tell us if the trend is falling up so far? I think the trend is likely, I think LBPA are likely to be challenged more in 2025 because of the legislative agenda. There are a huge number of changes that are likely in terms of LBPA. So I think, I mean, John, in discussion with myself, has already alluded to the fact that certain teams, there are more touch points from members than there ever was. And I think just the LGPS being so front and centre in the media and the government's agenda mean that that will continue to promote, sort of prompt people to get in touch and to ask questions about their pensions. And for pensions to become more of a topic of inquiry. And that means, you know, LBPA will be challenged. Obviously, they're doing things in terms of automation to try and minimise the impact of that on resources and the need to increase resources. We'll come on to the budget shortly. But I do think that I wouldn't be surprised if we see that help desk level rise for a period of time. But what would be good to see is that LBPA preempt that and have steps in place to mitigate against that rising. Yeah, thanks, Alan. And just to add to that. So we've spent lots of time looking at our data and insights, thinking about resource planning moving forward. So it's a lot more proactive as opposed to reactive than it used to be. Because obviously now our operating model is more stable. As you remember, a few years ago we migrated. It was challenging. We've come out the other side of that. We've got lots of good and new initiatives that we're working towards. So I agree with Alan. I think that there is a potential risk that there will be more incoming inquiries. And there will probably be other things on the legislative agenda that we need to maybe speak to members and employers about. But I'm hoping that we can sort of mitigate that by a lot of the work that we've done around the resource planning. Now we've got a lot of live dashboards that are available to the management team and to our operational leads. So we can see things as they're happening during the day. We're not reacting the following day. We can almost act there and then. And so within our contact center, as an example, we have people that are filled in contact us inquiries or emails and calls. And at the time when the phones are busy, obviously the sensible thing to do is just redeploy people from the emails and contact platforms to the calls. Now that sounds straightforward and sensible, but that didn't necessarily happen in the past because we didn't necessarily have the tools available to us to spot it as quickly as we would like to. So I agree with Eleanor, there's a risk, but I'm hopeful that we can counter that in some way with what I've just tried to describe. Thank you. And so is that dashboard available to the individual pension funds? Can I, as RBHF, see the performance of RBHF live? As I said, it's not, councillor. So the quarterly report that's in here rolls up some of the data for obviously visibility of these forums. And we also provide a monthly update to all clients, which at home we'll see, which gives more detail. And one of the things that Chris is here, Chris is now here to help support in his senior client relationship management role is, as we see things that are impacting a specific fund, let's pick up the phone and have that conversation there with them rather than wait for a monthly report to drop or a service review meeting to happen. So Chris's remit with some teams that we're hoping to recruit and support him will be able to do that more proactively, I suppose, than we've been able to do in the past. You know, there inevitably will be things that fall through the cracks, but we're trying to limit that happening. That's good. In the last three years, we've had representatives from the RPPA and that wasn't always the answer we were getting. That's really encouraging. Thank you for that mindset switch. Eleanor, a question to you. Over the last few years, one of the running themes of my line of questioning was to ask you each time what degree of support you and your team are providing the RPPA for us to be able to hit the targets. There's always this sort of, on the face of it, it looks like RPPA are working independently, that all is well. Each time we ask you, you do tell us that there are cases that your team is providing support with, that whilst it's normal for your team to provide some degree of support, perhaps the extent that you go to isn't normal. Where are things now? Have you noted an increase or an improvement? Thank you, Councillor. There is certainly a stabilising, I would say, rather than an increase or a decrease, in the number of cases or the extent by which my team or myself will become involved in. But there will still be a retirement case that needs heavily managing. We won't just chase once. We'll chase at several points and have to be the one that keeps the member informed. It's that slip through the net piece. There will still be a bereavement case that they haven't thought of as proactively as they should have. And we'll have to do the wraparound in terms of managing the beneficiaries' expectations, explaining what additional information is needed, and also prompting the team to deal with it in a timely manner. So that still happens, but it happens less frequently, which is why I say that it's stabilised, because the numbers are relatively the same, but the involvement, and so is the involvement. Thank you. So would you say that your level of involvement is sort of a normal level of involvement now, or is it still perhaps higher than normal? I think the number of cases is not excessive, but the involvement, the extent to which myself and my team have to become involved in, is at a higher level than I think we should need to intervene at. No further queries? No. Can I ask members to note the report? No. Very good. Then we will press on to item six, discretions policy. Thank you, Chair. Chris Batts, Senior Client Relationship Manager with LPPA. That's all right, yeah? Okay, I was just going to run you through a couple of the programmes that we're running at LPPA, the first of which is, and I've been given a mouthful here to start with, the Efficiency and Service Improvement Programme, known as ESIP. So this is about making use of our system technology to bring in automation, but very much focused on member experience, not driven by system first. It's very much still the member experience, and very focused on the retirement journey that we've spoken about through John and the statistics and the questions from Peter. So there are four key stages to the retirement journey, from the leaver notification up front, first and foremost, when we're told about it. That goes through to a quotation stage. That generates forms for members to complete, and ultimately ends in the payment stage. So through those four stages, to your question, Peter, in fact, there are potential delays at each and every one of those, whether that be a data validation, sorry, even the late notification in the first instance. Data quality will enable, or not, the ability for quotations to be automated. And I'm pleased to say that we started with deferred care quotations first, care being the simpler scheme calculation for benefits. And that's been quite successful. Now we're 68% online with those deferred online quotations. And obviously the speed at which we can get those out when it's automated is good. I think the fastest there is 48 seconds. You'll be asked why not everything is 48 seconds, if that's the case, but that's the fastest so far. The forms, we've started to look at online retirement forms. So the benefit of that, again, is to remove delays of postage return from us sending members returning. Should there be errors in those forms, that further delays things. By putting them online, you can build in real-time validation on those forms, reduce the risk of incorrect input, again, improving the data quality, and therefore the speed. Right at the end of that, you've got the payment stage. And we're looking at automation of that, again, focused on the deferred first, bigger population. And as part of that, we've got a bank. Remember whether it's verification or validation. So it's the bit that we already make sure it's a genuine sort code and account number. So the bit that we're looking to introduce is where you'd see typically on your banking apps where it also checks the name of the account that it matches those two former items. So that's in. We're looking at rolling out that online retirement form and continue to test and hopefully roll out in Q1 the payment process. So that's all been really quite positive and efficient. And I think a lot of the survey satisfactions, which are positive, will have been driven by some of this and the people that have gone through that naturally. So obviously with it being online as well, we can use system functionality to get through bigger numbers quicker as well, so bulk exercises. And just generally, I think we've had over 2,800 quotations out in five minutes. So the scale of it is really quite positive as well in terms of what we can do. And that creates capacity to hopefully focus on more of the member experience stuff behind the scenes. You know, there are people at the end of the day. We don't want to be driven entirely by the computer and what they can do online through Pension Point. To some of Eleanor's points, remembering there's a person at the end of it. As I say, the satisfaction so far has been pretty good. End-to-end delapsed time, just to throw another statistic at you, has enabled things to be reduced by 64% versus manual case processing as well. We can see the value, and that's why we continue to invest our time and efforts into the development. I'll pause at that one. I've got some regulatory stuff to update on, but did you want to break up, ask questions at that particular point? Thank you, Chair. Yeah, could you tell us what volume of people are using these routes as opposed to the traditional routes? I'm not aware of the percentage of the online retirement, but related to it, the numbers registered for Pension Point, which is obviously where this goes through, we've got just over 6,000, which is about 33% of the membership. Now, that won't all be active members going into retirement, so that number does proceed. I don't know. Do you know, John, off the top of your head? We can find out. Yeah, I guess it'd be interesting to see the trends. Obviously, we'll compare that with the satisfaction rates, but it'd be good to see that. Thank you. Okay. Well, it will be interesting to return to John's point earlier around the different routes through to understand the percentage you're using Pension Point and how that reflects with the other routes and performance. Indeed. You know, registrations is only part of the online picture, isn't it? We need to see how it's being used, and we're looking to a deeper dive into those statistics. Look forward to seeing that. So, one regulatory, just a quick update on MacLeod, firstly. So, to acknowledge that John's talked about the data program, the data program influences a lot of our other programs as well. It's the underlying key piece, and MacLeod being one and Dashboard being another. So, we're in a fairly positive place on MacLeod. We've gone through the MacLeod deadline for our blue light clients, and we've got lots of good lessons learned that we're able to share in the LG space, which Hammersmith will benefit from. We've now entered our real proper planning stages. So, functionality does already exist in the system, but there's some more to come that is for the bulk processing, which both feeds into valuation, and also into the benefit statement production for this calendar year. We have a release date, so our project is tracking in a good place. We still need it delivered, but we're an early adopter of the UPM software, which means that we've already got sight of it now, so we can get in early, and if there are any real howlers in there, heaven forbid, we can flag them on, we can get bugs fixed in a good time. In terms of the actual numbers and impact, the numbers of members involved are still relatively low. The statistics in the pack there, and the monetary values associated, again, really quite low. So, the process will be 31st of August for the benefit statements, and they will include the relevant McLeod numbers within them. With the best intentions in the world, we'll never hit 100% straight away, so one of the ways that we deal with this is to ensure that the members are communicated at all times. So, if they don't, for whatever reason, and there will be valid reasons, have a statement, we'll have a letter that explains to them when they will likely to be getting one. So, we don't want, it's about managing queries, pre-empting the queries, how we deal with them. And then, just to finish off very quickly on the pensions dashboard, 31st of October is the date that we're heading to, and it was interesting, some points made earlier about what's the landscape look like, what are we expecting members to generate and raise questions. The 31st of October is a connection deadline for the dashboard, but already we're sort of seeing more awareness of it out in the public domain, and members will ask, but they won't have access to it at that point, and that could be another, likelihood could be as much as a year later, but it enables us to get a good feel and start thinking about the queries that will arise when they do get to see it. For me, I digress slightly, for me, the real interesting point will be, we've got a collection of benefits in one place and making sure that you're directed to the right sources with your queries, you know, making sure that we're not having to handle other schemes and likewise, that we're not getting stuff pushed back. So, I'm sure the dashboard program are well on top of that, and we're considering it, but we have good lines in to be able to share some of that thinking. We have round tables that our letter attends every six to eight weeks, so we're doing updates via that. As we get closer, we'll get into individual project meters requirements. Thank you. Thank you. Say, for example, somebody still wanted to speak to someone. I've got my pension, I don't really understand it, and it's too much. Are they able to speak to somebody? Through the retirement type process? Yeah, absolutely. So, it's a digital preference rather than a, this is the only way, and we don't even say it's digital by default. That's the path that we want to go to. Yes, members can still contact us. There's still a phone number. There's a contact form as well, which is a different way of contacting off of the website, which is quite useful in that it will direct the questions to determine the nature of the query so it goes to the right place first time as well. But, yeah, absolutely, they'll still have the inquiry center. And just to add, where there are processes that can't be fully automated online, that's kind of invisible to the end, to the member, the end user, so we'll hand off internally, but bring them back to that digital path should they wish to follow it by a pension point. And just to follow up on that, say, for example, if my wife, although I'm single, but I'm still, if, for example, my wife was unable to advocate for herself, is there a bit, is there a provision where I could, I could, you know, it's on the system that Mr. Parkin is able to speak on behalf? There's ways of recording particular needs of particular customers on the system to recognize that, yes. Thank you. Whether that be down the form or powers of attorney in that situation, then they're recording and you can talk to representatives of a member. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. I have to say, I found that shocking to hear that you were single. Any further queries? Sorry to put Chris on the spot. It was interesting to hear about the pension dashboard, how actually an individual will see all of their different pensions in one place and then it'll be interesting to see how they're directed to the right provider to ask the questions. I guess we won't be able to see that. All we'll be able to do is know what we have in place for our members. I suppose there's a communication point with our members about when you're checking your pension dashboard, come to us when it's ours, but make sure you check who it is before you get in touch. I suppose there's a bit about how the pension dashboard will or won't help people and how we just need to make sure our fund members know how just to get in touch about our pension. So one of the things that I understand they'll do is get the relevant contact routes for all of the schemes. Back in the day, there used to be, I'm sure my age now, a blue book which had all the schemes in and the pensions managers in. It will be an online version of that for the contact centre numbers or website forms, I suspect. I don't... There will be mock-ups and we'll be able to share those through the programme. I should imagine when we see what the pensions dashboard programme are doing, we'll be able to share that and a lot of it's available already. But no, I don't think we'll have that view even ourselves into what the member sees at the end of the day. We'll only see the data that we're pushing towards it. Apologies for jumping the gun earlier, but can I ask members to note the report? Thank you. Thank you. Pressing on then to item six, our discretion's policy. Thank you, Chair. So this paper sets out the revised discretion's policy for the Hammersmith and Fulham pension fund. Once approved by this committee, it will be published and fund employers in this scheme will be notified of the changes. The key ones to note are the closure of transfers outside of 12 months, as well as the insertion of consideration for benefits to be paid to those with pre-2014 benefits with less than 12 months to live. I welcome any questions. It's done silence. I recall we've touched on this before, haven't we, Eleanor? And the committee were very supportive of the policy that we adopted at that time. So reassured that that remains the approach. Thank you, Chair. So the next steps will be to finalise and publish it and then also circulate it with fund employers as active with immediate effect. Can I ask members to note the report? Thank you, Eleanor. Now, I note that the remaining three items include exempt dependencies, so we will take the public elements of them first. Eleanor, if you can begin with us on item seven, pensions administration budget. Thank you, Chair. So this paper sets out the increased budget for LPPA's pension administration services to the fund and noting the increased budget for 25-26 of around £622,188,000 and we'll discuss the reasons behind that increased budget in the exempt appendices. Can I ask if there are any public questions? We will be returning to this. Then let's take the public elements of item eight, pension administration, cyber security. Thank you, Chair. So this paper sets out the proposed cyber security policy for the fund. The reason behind this is twofold. So one, in terms of the data breach in October 2024 and actions there that perhaps were not as efficient as they could have been, but that were definitely not as efficient as they could have been in outlining roles and responsibilities in such an event of that happening again. And then secondly, in terms of in line with the pension regulators general code with a higher focus on cyber security and so making sure that our members and beneficiaries know that we take holding their data seriously and we put robust measures in place. I'm very reassured that this is a forward-going priority for us to clarify many of those points and establish a clear strategy. Can I ask if there are any public questions, please? Adam-Peter. Councillor Adam-Peter Lang, thank you very much. Obviously, this is very much in the news at the moment. My local co-op has been out for food for about a week and Marks and Spencers have had data breaches where information has been given just in the last few days. So I think this is very timely and thank you very much for doing this. And I'm saying this in the public part of the meeting as well because obviously this is policy, but I just want to be reassured and thank you very much for all the work that's been done on this. I think it's really good, but just be reassured that beneath the policy there's going to be a capacity to deal with any such breach. I see you've got, is it Eversheds have you got lined up to, could you just explain a little bit more beyond the policy about how, not the detail of how it works, but just overall for me. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor. So sorry, just for clarification, are you asking in terms of how in practice the proposed policy would work? Not the detail of it, no, not earlier. No, I've just wanted to, this is a policy, obviously, and I'm just trying to inquire at this stage what's beneath that and what needs, not the detail of what needs to be beneath that, but is that in place or going to be in place? That's what I'm really asking for. Thank you. To clarify, and Peter, are you just looking for reassurance that the infrastructure is in place to implement a policy if a breach occurs? Is that all right? Yes, that's what I'm saying. Very good. Thank you, Councillor and Chair. So already that there is roles within the function of pension management to make sure that it happens. This is simply about documenting that and having clear vision for the fund. So we already have the local authorities' data protection policy in place and we adhere to that, but the recent data breach highlighted a gap in the pension fund having its own policy that is in line with LBHF as a local authority's data cyber security policy, if that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you very much, Laura James. Two questions from me. First one, clearly the data breach to understand it came from LPPA and it's very clear from the paper that you've said that it will be expected that LPPA will sign up to the new policy. I just want reassurance that they could consider that that is feasible and workable from their side. Thank you, Councillor. So the proposal that's put detailed in the draft policy is very much in line with what's already in place, so i.e. the 72 hours timeline to reporting to the ICO, reporting to us, us reporting to our own data protection officer, et cetera, but it's just about outlining that. It's about formalising it. Yes, we can't hold them to account if we haven't had that conversation and reinforce our expectations of them and so that's what the policy is there to do and to be very clear in what our expectations are and that we expect them to adhere to that. So the draft policy is in circulation at LPPA. I'm awaiting their feedback. It's been to our own lawyers and our own legal and IT and data protection officer, so we've done all the rounds internally and it's now about collating their feedback and going forward with the agreed policy. So it'll be something that LPPA can sign up to? There's nothing that I would see as contentious or outside of what is already in place in legislation. Thank you. And then second thing, the important thing actually is member confidence and reassurance. So what steps will you be taking or will be taken to communicate the new policy to members so that they can have that confidence that is the rationale for it? Thank you, Councillor. So we won't be circulating the whole policy, obviously, for obvious reasons. But what we will do is within our external website is detail that we have in place a policy that's in line with the ICO regulations and where they can go for a further understanding of how we protect their data and what happens in the event of any breaches in terms of making them informed. So if it's a very serious incident, then any affected members will, of course, be notified that it's happening. Thank you very much. Any further public questions on this item? Very good. Look forward to returning to it. Item nine, then, Eleanor, if you could introduce the public elements of Pension Fund Operational Risk Register. Thank you, Chair. So this paper sets out the Pension Operational Risk Register. So it identifies key high risks to note, notably in-house pension team provision. So there's some concerns there in terms of having the right infrastructure in order to run the scheme effectively. Noting a recent scheme advisory board letter to all chairs of pension funds in terms of investing, that includes LPPA service but also the in-house team. So getting the committees to think about how they want the service to be run, looking at the structure in place and the adequate resource and investing in that in order to remain compliant and deliver the best service for members and beneficiaries. Secondly, in terms of data retention, so pensions as you all know is a long-term data set. And in order to ensure that we remain compliant and have access to that data, the local authority need to ensure that the payroll platforms are still accessible in order for us to meet our legislative obligations. And thirdly, in terms of cyber security, that will always remain a red, a high likelihood because there is no guarantees, but actually by having a robust policy in place and procedures, we can mitigate against the impact of such an event happening. So they're the three key risks that I wanted to highlight that we don't get the opportunity to talk about in the main meeting, hence the taking away the operational side to discuss in this admin only meeting. And I very much appreciate you bringing this item to the committee today. As Councillor Chavot-Verdier has underlined a few occasions, the committee and I are extremely aware of the need to invest and support you and your team. I look forward to discussing that in greater depth during the exempt part of the meeting. Are there any public questions? Very good. Then let us take the final public element with item 10. Eleanor, if you could introduce pension fund cessations. Thank you, Chair. So the final paper touches on we have one fund employer that is ceasing in the pension fund so it is mighty catering limited who have a surplus and it is asked that the committee approve the recommendation there that will be discussed in the exempt part of the meeting. Absolutely and I understand that the recommendation is consistent with our previous management of cessations. Absolutely, in line with the funding strategy statement. Absolutely. Very good. Can I ask members then to agree to move from public to exempt meeting?