The Pension Fund Board was scheduled to meet to discuss a review of Buckinghamshire Pension Board policies, the Pension Fund Annual Report 2024/25, a McCloud update, the Pensions Dashboards Programme, and administration performance statistics.

Pension Fund Annual Report 2024/25

The board was scheduled to review the draft of the Buckinghamshire Pension Fund Annual Report for the year ending 31 March 2025. The annual report is required to be drafted each year in accordance with Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) guidelines.

The report includes:

• overall management of the fund
• governance and training
• financial performance
• fund account
• net assets statement and notes
• investments and funding
• scheme administration
• actuarial report on the fund

Report highlights include:

• Fund membership increased by 2.36% from 88,601 at 31 March 2024 to 90,694 at 31 March 2025
• The fund processed 1,442 retirements during 2024/25
• The fund paid out a total of £162,568,000 in pension benefits
• The fund collected a total of £191,494,000 in contributions
• Net assets available to fund benefits were £4,313,160,000

• On 31 March 2025, 98.2% of the fund's assets had been transitioned to the Brunel Pension Partnership investment pools[^1]

  [^1]: The Brunel Pension Partnership is made up of 10 local government pension schemes who have pooled their assets.

McCloud Judgement Update

The board was scheduled to note the current position regarding the McCloud remedy¹.

As a result of regulations that came into force on 1 October 2023, LGPS Pension Funds are required to check all qualifying members to see if underpin protection applies. Anyone who qualifies is entitled to have the pension they accrued between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2022 calculated as final salary pension if it would be higher than the CARE calculation².

There are 407 employers/payroll providers who are required to provide hours and service break data for the remedy period. As at the end of June 2025:

• 22 provided no data at all
• 31 provided partial data
• 354 provided complete data

The McCloud project team are working through errors by employer to check if the 'error' is expected, or if there is a genuine error or inconsistency that needs to be queried with the employer.

Pensions Dashboards Programme

The board was scheduled to note the Pensions Dashboards Programme implementation plan. The government intends to deliver pension dashboards through the Pension Schemes Act 2021 and Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022. The legislation will enable individuals to access their pensions information online, securely and in one place. The connection deadline to the pensions dashboard being provided by the PDP is 31 October 2026, however, the public sector pension schemes 'connect by' date is 31 October 2025.

Each LGPS fund is required to record its actions, record keeping requirements and timings when preparing to connect to the pensions dashboard.

Review of Buckinghamshire Pension Board Policies

The board was asked to review the terms of reference, code of conduct, conflicts policy and knowledge and understanding framework.

The Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment) (Governance) Regulations 2014 set out the requirements for an administering authority to establish a Local Pension Board. The Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) issued guidance on the creation and operation of Local Pension Boards. Board policies are formulated and reviewed annually to ensure robust governance is in place.

The Board's Terms of Reference, Code of Conduct, Conflicts Policy and Knowledge and Understanding Framework have been reviewed for this year. There are no material changes, other than to the Terms of Reference and Knowledge and Understanding Framework. Section 22 of the Terms of Reference has been updated to reflect the increase to allowances. Section 3 of the Knowledge and Understanding Framework has been updated to include Enlighten.

Annual Benefit Statements – Administration Year End Update

The board was scheduled to note the content of a report on annual benefit statements. Regulation 89 of the Local Government Pension Scheme Regulations 2013 requires an administering authority to issue an annual benefit statement no later than 5 months after the end of the Scheme year to which it relates (31 August).

98% of employers submitted the March member data via i-Connect by the 19 April 2025 deadline. The remaining submissions were all received by the end of April 2025.

Following the March data submitted in April 2025, 2,010 queries were generated relating to final pay queries. These were reviewed by an Employer Liaison Officer over April and May with queries sent to employers where relevant. All queries were resolved early June with 100% complete within the internal 10-day turnaround target.

Once reconciliation of 2024/25 member data is complete, member records are ready for ABS's to be issued. Statements will be issued towards the end of August as a result of the McCloud project work but it is expected that 100% of statements will be issued by the 31 August 2025 deadline.

Administration Performance Statistics

The board was scheduled to monitor the performance of the Pensions Administration team.

Between 1 April 2025 and 30 June 2025:

• 12,290 communications were received
• 19,232 new workflow cases were created, an increase of 15% from the previous quarter
• 19,860 workflow cases were completed by the administration team, an increase of 20% from the total number complete over quarter 4 of 2024/25
• 93.15% of cases were completed within the relevant turnaround target
• 99% of all calls received were answered with an average queue time of 17 seconds

As at the end of June 2025, 34% of all open cases were overdue the expected target completion date. The target is to have less than 30% overdue. Of the cases overdue, 84% of these cases are external meaning that the team are unable to work on these due to waiting on information from an employer or a response/forms being completed by a scheme member.

Forward Plan

The board was scheduled to review its forward plan, which included the following items:

• Breaches of the Law
• Annual Accounts Audit 2024/25
• Risk Register
• Scheme member and employer communications
• 'My Pension Online' Update
• Annual Review of Buckinghamshire Pension Board
• Governance Compliance Statement
• Audit findings report 2023/24
• Audit findings report 2024/25