Pension Board – governance, annual statements, minutes

JavaScript is not enabled

Without JavaScript enabled forms will not work.

The role of the Surrey Police and Sussex Police Pension Board is to assist the Scheme Manager in ensuring good governance and effective and efficient administration of the Police Pension Scheme.

Pension Board Administration

Rachel Lupanko

Office Manager
Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Surrey

PO Box 412
Guildford
Surrey
GU3 1YJ

01483 630200

[email protected]

Documents

To:	The Chief Constables of Sussex Police, Surrey Police
From:	Chair of the Joint Surrey Sussex Police Pension Board
Subject:	Pension Board Annual Report
Date:	25 August 2022

Purpose of Report:

This report sets out the key activities of the Joint Surrey/Sussex Police Pension Board for the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022, its membership and attendance record, summary of work completed and the proposed work plan for the year ahead.

Recommendations:

To note the extensive work of the Board during the year.
To thank the Board members and advisors for their diligent work and commitment in support of the Scheme Manager.
To note the new joint Surrey/Sussex Police Pension Board is now established and working effectively.
To share the approved report with the Chair of the national Police Scheme Advisory Board.

Surrey and Sussex Police – Joint Pensions Board

Annual Report 2021/22

Report by Iain McCulloch, Chair of the Joint Police Pensions Board

Introduction
- Both Surrey and Sussex Police Pension Boards were established on the 1st of April 2015 according to section 5 of the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 and Regulation 13 of the 2015 Police Pension Regulations to assist the Scheme Manager.
- The last year has continued to be another busy one. Both boards have now been combined and the first Surrey/Sussex Joint Pension Board was held on 22 April 2021 and was chaired by Simon Patter. Subsequent meetings were Chaired by Iain McCulloch. The first meeting was held as a pilot and an implementation ‘task and finish’ group was established to work through the detail of combining them. The Joint Board model was evaluated and has now been adopted by both Scheme Managers. The McCloud case concluded but has left pension schemes unsure how they can implement the changes as the Treasury ponders legislation to enable them to be made. The Board continued to monitor the performance of the current pension administrator whilst seeking a new provider. I am pleased that we were able to choose a suitable administrator and I thank the Board members and officers for their work to enable this.
- This report sets out the highlights of the work of the Joint Board for the five meetings held on 22 April 2021, 22 July 2021, 13 October 2021 (extra ordinary, 10 November 2021 and 02 February 2022. Other meetings were also held during the year for the purposes as set out in the report.
The Pension Schemes Overseen
- There are three pension schemes under administration within the each of the police pension schemes.
- A summary of the benefits payable under each of the schemes can be found in Appendix 1.
- The Pension Fund is administered by the Chief Constables in accordance with the Police Pension Fund Regulations 2007 (SI 2007 No 1932).
- Day to day administration of the schemes is completed by Equiniti a contractor appointed and overseen by the Pension Board and Shared Business Services colleagues. Pension payments made from the Chief Constables Police Pension Fund Account which is part of the Surrey or Sussex Police Fund.
- Benefits totalling £136m were issued to pensioners in 2021/22. The pension fund accounts as published in the Draft Statement of Accounts 2021/22 are shown in Table 2 and Table 3.

Table 2 - Sussex Police Pension Fund Account Statement

Table 3 - Surrey Police Pension Fund Account Statement

For a copy of these tables please email the Pensions Administrator Rachel Lupanko.

The annual deficit on the Police Pensions Account is funded by the Home Office Pension’s Top-up grant.

Governance and Compliance
- The Board continued to monitor compliance with pension legislation during the period and ensure that its processes and policies were compliant. The Implementation Sub Board was established to review all policies and procedures because of the work to join both Surrey and Sussex Pension Boards together. The Sub Board met three times and completed all its actions as reported to the 10 November 2021 Joint Pension Board. The Sub Board has now been disbanded.
- Breaches are a standing item on each Board agenda. No breaches were reported during the period.
- The risk register is a standing item on the Board agenda. A training session was held for Board members and advisors on 15 April 2021 to increase awareness and understanding of risks and risk management. The session helped to identify new risks that were included on the pension risk register. It also provided knowledge for members to scrutinise the risks at each Board meeting including cyber, legislation and service provision.
- Procurement of the administration service was addressed at the extraordinary meeting held on 13 October.
Terms of Reference (TOR)
- New Terms of Reference for the Joint Board were approved by the Board on 22 July 2021.
A summary of the work of the Board 2021/22
- It has been a very busy year for the new Joint Board which had to manage the transition to the new joint arrangement, oversee the procurement and award of the new pension administration provider as well as it usual work plan of pension board activities. Key activities dealt with during the year included:
- Joint Pension Board: The first joint meeting was held on 22 April 2021 to pilot the concept and find out if it was a model that could work for both Scheme Managers and their respective Pension Board members. An implementation ‘task and finish’ group guided by Daisanne Summersfield oversaw the detail of bringing both boards together including reviewing legislation, rewriting the terms of reference and other key documents. They met three times in total and reported to the Joint Pension Board. The concept was proven and the Boards are now combined and working together as one.
- Joint Work Plan: A joint board needed to bring together several workstreams including their own work plans. A joint work plan was created, presented, and approved by the Board at the meeting on 14 July 2021. The Board reviews the work plan at each of its meetings. A copy of the plan can be found in the Appendix 2.
- Overseeing the procurement of a new pension administrator: The contract with the current pension administrator Equiniti was due to cease in January 2022. Equiniti stated that they did not intend to join the Mint Framework for the Provision of Pension Administration Services set up for meeting the needs of any UK Police Force, the National Crime Agency and any UK Fire and Rescue Service. It was agreed that both Surrey and Sussex would explore other options for pension administration. The Board oversaw the procurement of the new pension administrator and received updates in the ‘Part 2’ section at each of the Board meetings. The Board also held an extraordinary meeting on 13 October 2021 when it considered a paper recommending the preferred new supplier. The Board approved the recommendation. The transfer of the service to the new provider is now expected in November 2022 and the Board will continue to monitor the performance of the current provider during this important and sensitive time.
- Monitoring the performance of the current pension administrator: There were several issues with the timeliness of reports provided and in the KPI’s achieved. The Board ensured it engaged with the pension administrator in a respectful but firm manner. The pension administrator presented a plan to improve its performance to the November meeting. However, performance was still below that expected and an email was received from the pension administrator in May 2022 confirming their commitment and updating the Board on their improvement plan.
- Monitoring Member Opt Out: The Board continued to review the numbers of new and existing members who are opting out of the scheme to identify why and what the Board can do to enlighten and raise awareness of the benefits of the scheme for them in the future. Communications are being developed to help address any questions of members who may be thinking of opting out and they will be reviewed by the Board.
- Ill Health Retirement: The Board reviewed the number of applications and progress of cases.
- Continued Training for Pension Board Member: The Chair recognises the importance and value of a suitably skilled and competent Board. During the year a training session was held with members and advisors on risk. New members completed their Pension Regular online courses and there were briefings on the McCloud pension case and the remedy.
- Evans and Ashcroft Case: This case concerns the possibility that retired officers in receipt of injury pension benefits might be subject to over-deductions in respect of incapacity and industrial injury disablement benefits. It was decided that Surrey and Sussex Police approach would be to treat these on a case-by-case basis. The NARPO member advised that some consideration needed to be given to this approach as not all affected scheme members were aware of this judgement. The pension administrator carried out an analysis of the membership and determined that approximately 360 scheme members could be in scope but only one member had made a claim. An action was taken to work with the new pension administrator to identify how members can be informed about the case.

Board Matters

Board Meeting Frequency
- The Board Terms of Reference require that the Board will meet four times in each calendar year on a three-monthly cycle. The Board met on the following dates: 22 April 2021, 22 July 2021, 10 November 2021 and 02 February 2022. An Extraordinary meeting was held on 13 October 2021.
Board Membership and Attendance
- Board members carry out an important role to support the Scheme Manager some of whom volunteer their time or take time out of their busy day job or other activities. I would like to take the opportunity to recognise and thank the Board members for their time and work in support of the Scheme Manager over the last year.
- Iain McCulloch was the independent Chair of the Joint Board and Kelvin Menon is the deputy Chair for the period of this report. The Terms of Reference state “There shall be an Independent Chair and a Deputy Chair who will be the Chief Finance Officer (Treasurer) to the Police and Crime Commissioner for both Surrey and Sussex and will alternate the role and are appointed jointly by the Scheme Manager, they will also have the power to vote. “

During the period of this report the Board met 5 times during the year. The table in Appendix 3 sets out the attendance of each member.
There was a change in membership on both the employer and employee side during this period. Dave Miller was replaced by Carwyn Hughes in Feb 2022 and Danielle Mead replaced Simon Patter in April 2021.
The quorum for decision making is 8 members including chair / deputy chair - equal number of member and employer representatives. The Board was quorate for all its meetings.
Costs incurred by the Board
- The administration cost for the 2020/2021 period was £1.5k. No other costs, fees or expenses were incurred during the period covered by this report

Date – 23 August 2022

Author – Iain McCulloch, Chair

For appendices please email the Pensions Administrator Rachel Lupanko.

Joint Chair

Iain McCulloch - Chief Finance Officer, Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Sussex (Employer)
Kelvin Menon - Chief Finance Officer, Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Surrey (Employer)

Joint Deputy Chair

Danielle Mead - Officer, Surrey Police Federation (Scheme Member)
Donna Lonsdale - Officer, Sussex Police Federation (Scheme Member)

Board Members

Daisanne Summersfield - Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey Police & Sussex Police (Employer)
Adrian Rutherford - Director of People Services, Surrey Police & Sussex Police (Employer)
Carwyn Hughes - Head of Digital, Data & Technology, Surrey Police and Sussex Police
Tom Budd - Officer, Superintendents Association (Scheme Member)
Miles Ockwell - Officer, Superintendents Association (Scheme Member)
Simon Lambert - NARPO (Surrey) (Scheme Member)
Graham Bradley - NARPO (Sussex) (Scheme Member)

Pension Board Administration

Rachel Lupanko - Office Manager, Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Surrey

FULL PRIVACY NOTICE

for the members and beneficiaries of the Sussex Police Pension

This notice is for members of the Sussex Police Pension (the "Scheme"). It has been prepared by The Chief Constable of Sussex (the "Police Pension Authority", or "we") in their capacity as the manager of the Scheme (the "Scheme Manager").

Why we are providing this notice to you

As Scheme Manager we hold certain information about you ("personal data") which we use to administer the Scheme and to pay benefits from it. This notice is designed to give you information about the data we hold about you, how we use it, your rights in relation to it and the safeguards that are in place to protect it.

The technical bit

The Police Pension Authority holds personal data about you in its capacity as data controller for the proper handling of all matters relating to the Scheme, including its administration and management. This includes the need to process your data to contact you, to calculate, secure and pay your benefits, for statistical and financial modelling and for reference purposes (for example, when we assess how much money is needed to provide members' benefits and to inform the Home Office of any additional funding requirements), and to manage liabilities and administer the Scheme generally. Further information about how we use your personal data is provided below.

The legal basis for our use of your personal data will generally be one or more of the following:

we need to process your personal data to satisfy our legal obligations as Scheme Manager; and
we need to process your personal data to carry out a task in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority in our capacity as a public body;
we need to process your personal data for the legitimate interests of administering and managing the Scheme and liabilities under it, calculating, securing and paying benefits and performing our obligations and exercising any rights, duties and discretions the Scheme Manager has in relation to the Scheme.
Where we have no other legal basis we will ask for your consent to process your personal data.

The Scheme Manager has appointed the Sussex Police Pension Board, as detailed in the Pension Board Terms of Reference, to assist in the management and administration of the Scheme.

What personal data we hold, and how we obtain it

The types of personal data we hold and process about you can include:

Contact details, including name, address, telephone numbers and email address.
Identifying details, including date of birth, national insurance number and employee and membership numbers.
Information that is used to calculate and assess eligibility for benefits, for example, length of service or membership and salary information.
Financial information relevant to the calculation or payment of benefits, for example, bank account and tax details.
Information about your family, dependents or personal circumstances, for example, marital status and information relevant to the distribution and allocation of benefits payable on death.
Information about your health, for example, to assess eligibility for Ill Health or Injury on Duty benefits or where your health may be relevant to a claim made by your beneficiary’s following your death.
Information about a criminal conviction where this may result in pension forfeiture.

We obtain some of this personal data directly from you. We may also obtain data (for example, salary information) from your current or past employer(s), from a member of the Scheme (where you are or could be a beneficiary of the Scheme as a consequence of that person's membership of the Scheme) and from a variety of other sources including public databases (such as the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages), our advisers and government or regulatory bodies, including those in the list of organisations that we may share your personal data with set out below.

Where we obtain information concerning certain "special categories" of particularly sensitive data, such as health information, extra protections apply under the data protection legislation. We will only process your personal data falling within one of the special categories with your consent, unless we can lawfully process this data for another reason permitted by that legislation. You have the right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time by notifying the Police Pension Authority in writing. However, if you do not give consent, or subsequently withdraw it, the Police Pension Authority may not be able to process the relevant information to make decisions based on it, including decisions regarding the payment of your benefits.

Where you have provided us with personal data about other individuals, such as family members, dependants or potential beneficiaries under the Scheme, please ensure that those individuals are aware of the information contained within this notice.

How we will use your personal data

We will use this data to deal with all matters relating to the Scheme, including its administration and management. This can include the processing of your personal data for all or any of the following purposes:

to contact you.
to assess eligibility for, calculate and provide you (and, if you are a member of the Scheme, your beneficiaries upon your death) with benefits.
to identify your potential or actual benefit options and, where relevant, implement those options.
for statistical and financial modelling and reference purposes (for example, when we assess how much money is needed to provide members' benefits).
to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations as Scheme Manager.
to address queries from members and other beneficiaries and to respond to any actual or potential disputes concerning the Scheme.
the management of the Scheme's liabilities.

Organisations that we may share your personal data with

From time to time we will share your personal data with advisers and service providers so that they can help us carry out our duties, rights and discretions in relation to the Scheme. Some of those organisations will simply process your personal data on our behalf and in accordance with our instructions. Other organisations will be responsible to you directly for their use of personal data that we share with them. They are referred to as data controllers and we have highlighted them in the table below. The data controllers may be obliged under the data protection legislation to provide you with additional information regarding the personal data that they hold about you and how and why they process that data. Further information may be provided to you in a separate notice or may be obtained from the advisers and service providers direct, for example, via their websites.

These organisations include the Scheme's:

Data processors

· Administrator - (currently Equiniti Paymaster).

· Tracing bureaus for mortality screening and locating members - (currently Equiniti Paymaster)

· Overseas payments provider to transmit payments to scheme member with non-UK accounts - (currently Equiniti)

Data controllers

· Legal adviser - (currently Weightmans LLP)

· External auditor - (currently Ernst & Young LLP)

· Internal auditor - (currently RSM Risk Assurance Services LLP)

· Police Medical Appeals Board

· The Department for Work and Pensions

· The Government Actuary's Department

· The Cabinet Office - for the purposes of the National Fraud Initiative

· HMRC

· The Courts of England and Wales - for the purpose of processing pension sharing orders on divorce

In each case we will only do this to the extent that we consider the information is reasonably required for these purposes.

From time to time, if applicable, we may provide some of your data to your employer and their relevant subsidiaries and advisers for the purposes of enabling your employer to understand its liabilities to the Scheme. Your employer would generally be a controller of the personal data shared with it in those circumstances.

As part of an ill health application or injury on duty award if there is an appeal, we may provide your health information to the Police Medical Appeals Board.

Where requested or if we consider that it is reasonably required, we may also provide your data to government bodies and dispute resolution and law enforcement organisations, including those listed above, the Pensions Regulator, the Pensions Ombudsman and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). They may then use the data to carry out their functions.

The organisations referred to in the paragraphs above may use the personal data to perform their functions in relation to the Scheme as well as for statistical and financial modelling (such as calculating expected average benefit costs and mortality rates) and planning, business administration and regulatory purposes. They may also pass the data to other third parties, to the extent they consider the information is reasonably required for a legitimate purpose.

In some cases recipients of your personal data may be outside the UK. This means your personal data may be transferred outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") to a jurisdiction that may not offer an equivalent level of protection as is required by EEA countries. If this occurs, we are obliged to verify that appropriate safeguards are implemented with a view to protecting your data in accordance with applicable laws. Please use the contact details below if you want more information about the safeguards that are currently in place.

We do not use your personal data for marketing purposes and will not share this data with anyone for the purpose of marketing to you or any other member.

How long we keep your personal data

We will only keep your personal data for as long as we need to in order to fulfil the purpose(s) for which it was collected and for so long afterwards as we consider may be required to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about our administration of the Scheme, unless we elect to retain your data for a longer period to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. In practice, this means that your personal data will be retained for such period as you (or any beneficiary who receives benefits after your death) are entitled to benefits from the Scheme and for a period of 15 years after those benefits stop being paid. For the same reason, your personal data may also need to be retained where you have received a transfer, or refund, from the Scheme in respect of your benefit entitlement.

Your rights

You have a right to access and obtain a copy of the personal data that the Police Pension Authority holds about you and to ask the Police Pension Authority to correct your personal data if there are any errors or it is out of date or incomplete. In certain circumstances you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data; for example you have the right to object to processing of your personal data which is based on the legitimate interests identified in the section above headed "The Technical Bit", or where the processing is for direct marketing purposes. In some cases you may also have a right to ask the Police Pension Authority to restrict the processing of your personal data until any errors are corrected or to transfer or (in very limited circumstances) erase your personal data. You can obtain further information about these rights from the Information Commissioner's Office at: www.ico.org.uk or via its telephone helpline (0303 123 1113).

If you wish to exercise any of these rights or have any queries or concerns regarding the processing of your personal data, please contact the Administrator as indicated below. You also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to this privacy notice or the Police Pension Authority's processing activities with the Information Commissioner's Office which you can do through the website above or their telephone helpline.

As explained in the section above headed "How we will use your personal data", one of the reasons we collect and hold your personal data is to administer your Scheme benefits. If you do not provide the information we request, or ask that the personal data we already hold is deleted or that the processing of the personal data be restricted, this may affect our ability to administer your benefits, including the payment of benefits from the Scheme. In some cases it could mean the Police Pension Authority is unable to put your pension, or an element of the pension, into payment, or has to stop your pension (if already in payment).

Updates

We may update this notice periodically. Where we do this we will inform members of the changes and the date on which the changes take effect.

This notice was last updated on 17 January 2020.

Contacting us

For queries on benefit payments, annual statements etc., please contact the Administrator, Equiniti Paymaster, for further information.

Email: [email protected] Tel: 0333 207 5967

Address:

Equiniti

Sutherland House Russell way Crawley

RH10 1UH

You can find a copy of Equiniti’s Privacy Policy here: https://equiniti.com/uk/privacy-policy/

For all other queries, or if you have a complaint about how your information has been collected, how it has been used or how long we keep it for, please contact Joanna Langley, Pensions Lead:

SBSC, PO BOX 101

Guildford Surrey GU1 9PE

Email: [email protected]

Data Protection Officer

You may also contact our data protection officer, Marcus Potter, for further information.

Data Protection Officer

Malling House

Sussex Police Headquarters Church Lane

Lewes

East Sussex BN7 2DZ

Email: [email protected]

PENSION BOARD DRAFT TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR POLICE PENSION BOARD FOR SURREY AND SUSSEX

Version adopted and approved on 22/07/2021

1. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this document is to set out the Terms of Reference for the Joint Police Pension Board for Surrey and Sussex (the Board).

The two Boards were established on 1 April 2015 by Chief Constable Lynn Owens, as Chief Constable of Surrey Police and Giles York Chief Constable of Sussex Police (the “Scheme Manager”) according to section 5 of the Public Service Pensions Act and regulation 13 of the 2015 Police Pension Regulations. As of April 2021 this will be a joint Surrey / Sussex Board

Chief Constable Gavin Stephens of Surrey Police and Chief Constable Jo Shiner of Sussex Police have given their approval of these Terms of Reference on 15/07/2021.

Section 21 of these Terms of Reference explains the defined terms used in these Terms.

2. POWERS OF THE POLICE PENSION BOARD

The Board will exercise all its powers and carry out its duties in accordance with the law and these Terms of Reference.

3. AMENDMENT OF THESE TERMS OF REFERENCE

Subject always to the Act and Regulations, the Board may amend any term of these Terms of Reference where, in its reasonable judgement, such amendment would promote the efficiency and smooth working of the Board.

A Board Member may propose an amendment at any meeting of the Board. The Board Member shall have informed the Chair of his or her proposal and the Chair shall have included the proposal in the meeting agenda and / or papers circulated prior to a meeting of the Board. Such amendment shall be made where a majority of the Board Members present and voting at any meeting are in favour of the proposal.

4. FUNCTIONS OF THE BOARD

The role of the Joint Pensions Board is, under regulation 13(1) of the Regulations, to assist the Scheme Managers:

to secure compliance with:

the Regulations;
any other legislation relating to the governance and administration of the Police Pension Scheme (the “Scheme”) (and any statutory pension scheme that is connected with it);
any requirements imposed by the Pension Regulator in relation to the Scheme (and any statutory pension scheme that is connected with it);

and

in the performance of the Scheme Managers functions under the Regulations.

The Scheme Managers considers that “assisting the Scheme Manager” should be interpreted as helping the Scheme Manager in his/her management or administration of the Scheme pursuant to sections 4 and 5 of the Act and the Regulations.

This shall include, but shall not be limited to, doing, in a timely manner, such work and tasks as requested by the Scheme Managers in relation to such aspects of governance and administration of the Scheme as the Scheme Manager determines.

The specific functions of the Board as determined by the Scheme Managers above the Board’s core statutory role are set are as set out in Annex A to these Terms of Reference.

5.COMPOSITION OF THE PENSION BOARD

Membership

The Board shall consist of a minimum of eight voting members (who must be Employer or Scheme Member Representatives) and maximum of twelve, and be constituted as follows:

There shall be a Chair appointed as per the process in the next section
The Chair shall appoint at least 11 other members of the Board who are entitled to vote and there shall be an equal number of Employer representatives and Scheme Member representatives from both Surrey and Sussex and shall include the PCC’s CFO from the both Surrey and Sussex.
The Chairs may appoint any number of Independent Members to the Board who are not entitled to vote.
Board Members should be able to demonstrate their capacity to attend and complete the necessary preparation for meetings and participate in training as required.
Scheme Member Representatives shall either be Scheme Members, active or deferred or pensioner or have capacity to represent members of the scheme.

Appointment and Removal of Chair and Deputy Chair

The Scheme Managers have a responsibility under the Regulations to appoint the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Board for a term not exceeding a period of 3 years.

Where the Scheme Managers do not appoint an Independent Chair the Chair of the meeting shall be appointed as follows in order to comply with the regulations:

In the 1^st year (of a 4-year cycle), the Chair will be a Sussex employer representative (usually the Sussex PCC’s CFO) and the Deputy Chair will a Surrey employee representative. The Chair and Deputy chair will swap the role of chairing the meetings after one year;
In the 3^rd year (of a 4-year cycle), the Chair will be a Surrey employer representative (usually the Surrey PCC’s CFO) and the Deputy Chair will be a Sussex employee representative. The Chair and Deputy Chair will swap the role of chairing the meetings after one year
If the Chair or the Deputy Chair’s term of office:
terminates by natural expiry, the Scheme Managers will appoint the next Chair or the Deputy Chair as set out above; or
terminates for any other reason, the Scheme Managers will appoint another person to replace the outgoing party from the existing membership of the Board from the same group of members for the remainder of the term of office.

The Chair will ensure that meetings are properly conducted according to these Terms of Reference and other relevant procedures adopted by the Board and the decision of the Chair on all points of procedure and order shall be final.

The role of the Deputy Chair is to assist the Chair in carrying out their functions and to carry out those functions if the chair is not present.

The Chair or Deputy Chair may delegate any of their functions apart from the responsibility to appoint Board Members.

Appointment and Removal of Board Members

The Chair of the Board shall appoint the Employer Representatives and Scheme Member Representatives from both Surrey and Sussex, subject to the approval of the relevant Scheme Manager.

The eligibility and selection criteria for selecting Board Members and details as to how Board Members are to be removed are set out in the Police Pension Board Members Appointment and Removal Rules at Annex B.

6. DECISION MAKING AND ADMINISTRATION

Notice of Meetings, Agendas and Minutes

The Chair of the meeting will prepare an agenda prior to each Board meeting.

Notice of meetings should be provided to all Board Members and published on the Scheme Managers websites at least one month in advance of each meeting. If a Board Member decision is required as a matter of urgency a shorter notice period will be used. Where a Board Member cannot attend a meeting called urgently, there is a procedure set out in section 8 below for the appointment of substitute attendee.

The Chair may decide to convene a meeting by conference call or other electronic means in accordance with these Terms as set in section 7 of these Terms below.

Board Members will be required to notify the Chair of any agenda items at least 7 working days in advance of the meeting. All agenda items are at the discretion of the Chair. The agreed agenda is to be published on the Scheme Managers websites at least 5 working days prior to the meeting.

The agenda and any papers for the Board will be issued at least 5 working days (where practicable) in advance of the meeting except in the case of matters of urgency. Minutes of each meeting summarising the content of the meeting, including all decisions, actions and agreements, will be recorded and circulated to all Board Members within 10 working days after the meeting. These minutes will be subject to formal agreement by the Chair taking consideration of comments by Board Members (which may be done electronically between meetings).

The minutes may, at the discretion of the Chair, be edited to exclude items on the grounds that they would involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as required under the Data Protection and Information Security Policy (Part 2), if edited, the finalised minutes shall show redacted extracts and once approved by the Board are published on the Scheme Managers websites.

7. Location and Timing

Subject to the ability of the Board to meet by telephone or by other electronic means as set out below, the Board will normally meet alternately at Police Head Quarters, in Guildford, Surrey or Lewes in Sussex.

The Board may meet in person, by telephone, video conferencing or by other electronic means, so long as each Board Member can contribute to the business of the meeting.

The Board will meet 4 times in each calendar year on a 3 monthly cycle. The Chair may call or agree to call, additional meetings in exceptional circumstances.

There shall also be ability for the Chair, with the consent of the Board membership and/or the Scheme Manager to require a special meeting to be convened on notice.

8. Quorum and Appointment of Proxies

A meeting of the Board is quorate when:

at least 8 Members are present one of whom is the Chair or Deputy Chair and
there are an equal number of Employer and Scheme Member Representatives present

All Board Members are expected to regularly attend meeting. Records of attendance of all Board Members will be maintained and reported to both of the Scheme Managers and the Chair of the Scheme Advisory Board on an annual basis.

Substitute members can be appointed to the Board subject to completion of nomination process and at the discretion of the Chair.

If for any reason a Board Member cannot attend a Board meeting an appointed substitute (as long as they are representing the same group as the Board Member that they are substituting), can attend and vote at the meeting in their place. Such substitution only remains valid for the meetings that the Board Member cannot attend.

9. Voting and Decision-making

Where all the Board Members are present at the meeting, and a decision is required, the decision will be taken on approval of a majority of Board Members present at the meeting.

Where not all Board Members are present at any given meeting of the Board but the meeting is quorate, unanimous approval of all Board Members present is required.

The Board Members may also make decisions by written resolution signed by all the Board Members. The Chair shall determine this on a case-by-case basis and shall ensure that all Board Members receive full information to make a proper decision. The Board may exercise this power where it is impracticable to take a decision in a given meeting of the Board.

Each Employer and Scheme Member Representative on the Board has an individual voting right for each matter put to vote.

An Independent Member does not have a voting right unless they are appointed as the Chair or Deputy Chair.

If there is a tied vote on any issue, the Chair has a casting vote.

The results of any voting outcomes will be reported in the Board Minutes.

Creation of Working Groups/Sub-Boards

The Board has the power to set up working groups or sub-boards on whatever terms that the Board reasonably determines.

If the Board decides to create a working group or sub-board than it will prepare terms of reference for each of these sub-committees in a timely way.

10. Budget

The Board will have a budget for the following purposes:

Reasonable fees and expenses for Board members;
Reasonable legal, technical and other professional advice;
Cost of secretarial support;
Reasonable accommodation and administrative support to conduct its meetings and other business accommodation costs;
Training for members; and
Anything else that the Scheme Managers reasonably determine.

The terms of the budget are set out in the Board’s “Budget, Fees and Expenses” document. The amount of the budget shall be as notified to the Board by the Scheme Managers on an annual basis.

11. FEES AND EXPENSES

Fees and expenses of Board Members will be as set out in the Board’s “Budget, Fees and Expenses” Document.

12. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The Board Members shall always act within these Terms of Reference and in accordance with the Board’s “Conflict of Interest Policy”.

Though members of the Board include representatives of specific categories of stakeholder (i.e. scheme members and employers) each Board Member is required to have due regard to the role of the Board as outlined in these Terms of Reference.

Accordingly, all members are expected to work jointly with the key purpose of assisting the Scheme Manager in the management or administration of the Scheme, putting aside any individual views they may have in their private capacity or professional role. However, this should not prevent Board Members from sharing their knowledge on how matters might impact specific stakeholders of the scheme.

The Chair of the Board must be satisfied that the Board is acting within:

the conflicts of interest requirements of the PSPA and the Regulations; and
in the spirit of the Pension Regulator’s Code of Practice no. 14 in relation to conflicts of interest; and
in accordance with the Board’s “Conflict of Interest Policy”.

Each Board Member, or a person proposed to be appointed to the Board, (as well as attendees participating in the meeting) must provide the Scheme Managers with such information as he or she is reasonably required to for the purposes of demonstrating that there is no conflict of interest.

13. ADVICE AND INFORMATION

The Board may appoint professional advisers, or other advisors to advise the Board on such matters that the Board determines. This will be on an ‘as required’ basis. For the avoidance of doubt, any expert adviser is not a Board Member.

The process for their appointment and agreeing their fees shall be on terms as the Board determines and are set out in the Fees and Expenses document.

If the Chair appoints an independent individual to the Board, he or she shall support the Board in its role and responsibilities.

The Board should request such information and documents from the Scheme Manager that it requires to carry out its functions. The Scheme Manager will be required to consider positively all reasonable requests in relation to the role of the Board whilst being mindful of value for money. The Scheme Manager shall inform the Board as soon as reasonably possible of his or her decision in relation to any request of the Board and shall carry out anything required of him/her in relation to this as soon as reasonably possible.

14. KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Under the requirements of the PSPA, a member of the Board must be conversant with:

the rules of the Scheme and
any document recording policy about the administration of the Scheme which has been adopted in relation to the scheme.

In addition, a Board Member must have knowledge and understanding of:

the law relating to pensions; and
any other matters which are prescribed in regulations.

The degree of knowledge and understanding referred to above is that appropriate for the purpose of enabling the individual properly to exercise the functions of a member of the Board.

It is for individual Board members to be satisfied that they have the appropriate degree of knowledge and understanding to enable them to properly exercise their functions as a member of the Board; and therefore must comply with the Board’s Knowledge and Understanding and Training Policy and participate in such personal training needs analysis or other processes that are put in place in order to ensure that they maintain the required level of knowledge and understanding to carry out their role on the Board.

15. STANDARDS OF CONDUCT

The “Code of Conduct” shall apply in relation to the standards of conduct of Board Members.

16. REPORTING ON THE BOARD’S ACTIVITIES

The Chair shall provide the approved minutes of each meeting to the Scheme Manager and produce an annual report on the Board’s activity, which is shared with the Chair of the Scheme Advisory Board.

17. REPORTING BREACHES ETC.

The Board shall report breaches of law in accordance with its “Reporting Procedures Policy”. An update will be given to the Board at each meeting of any Breaches that have been reported or recorded during the quarter prior to the meeting.

18. ACCESS TO THE PUBLIC AND PENSION BOARD INFORMATION

The following will be entitled to attend Board meetings in an observer capacity:

Officers or advisers of the Force or other employers involved with the management of the Scheme subject to approval in advance by the Chair, or on request of the Chair;
Any other person requested to attend by the chair;
Any other person subject to approval in advance by the Chair;
Members of the press and public can attend the meeting but the Chair reserves the right to hold part of the meeting in private (Part 2), on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the Data Protection and Security Information Policy.

Any such attendees will be permitted to speak on request of the Chair and may submit a written question to the Chair at least 10 working days prior to the meeting, if the Chair approves the request the question will be asked and answered during the meeting. If more time is required to provide an answer, this will be indicated at the meeting.

19. INDEMNITY/INSURANCE

Indemnity Insurance will be provided to members of the Board by the Local Authorities (Indemnity for Members and Officers) Order 2004

20. REVIEW, INTERPRETATION AND PUBLICATION OF TERMS OF REFERENCE

These Terms of Reference have been agreed by the Board and will be reviewed annually.

The Terms of Reference are only effective once both of the Scheme Managers have provided confirmation that they approve them.

Changes to these Terms of Reference will only be approved by the Board, with both the Scheme Manager’s approval; and will be made in accordance with section 3 above of these Terms of Reference.

The Terms of Reference will include the Scheme Managers legal requirement to publish information in relation to the Board:

21. DEFINITIONS AND INTERPRETATION

The following words apply to the Terms of Reference:

“2015 Regulations”		Means the Police Pension Regulations 2015
“Act”		Means the Public Service Pensions Act 2013.
“Board Member”		Means a member of the Board (this includes a reference to an Employer Representative, Employee Representative and an Independent Member).
“Chair”		Means the appointed chairperson of the Pension Board.
“Code of Conduct”		Means the code of conduct adopted by the Board.
“Conflicts of Interest”		Is as defined in the Act.
“Conflicts of Interest Policy”		Means the policy on conflicts of interest as adopted by the Board.
“Deputy Chair”		Means the appointed deputy chairperson of the Board.
“Employer Representative”		Means a person appointed to the Board for the purpose of representing employers for the Scheme and any connected scheme.
“Independent Members”		Means neither and Employer Representative or a Scheme Member Representative.
“Knowledge and Understanding and Training Policy”		Means the training policy as adopted by the Board
“Police Pension Board Member Appointment and Removal Rules”		The document adopted by the Board setting out the nomination and selection procedure and how Board Members are to be appointed and removed.
“Reporting Procedure”		Means the procedure adopted by the Board setting out the Board’s procedure for reporting breaches of law and other matters.
“Scheme”		The Police Pension Scheme.
“Scheme Managers”		The Chief Constable of Surrey Police and the Chief Constable of Sussex Police
“Scheme Member Representative”		Means a person appointed to the Board for the purpose of representing scheme members of the scheme and any connected scheme.

All references to job titles of officers are to officers within the Force unless otherwise stated.

22. STANDARD AGENDA

The standard agenda will consist of the following:

Conflicts of interest
Review of minutes, actions and decisions made since the last Board meeting
Risks Register
Review of reports from Scheme Administrator.
Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update
Recorded or Reported Breaches update
SLA and service performance reports if applicable
Feedback from stakeholders, including any members forum
Details of any complaints about the scheme administration
Pension Remedy Updates
Any other business acceptable to the Chair.
Pension Board Financial report (annually)
Pension Statement Survey Results (annually)
Pension Board Budget Spend (annually)
Report to Scheme Advisory Board (annually)

ANNEX A

Functions of the Board above it’s core statutory role

The purpose of the Board is to assist the Scheme Managers in the following matters above the Board’s core statutory role:

set the scope and direction of the administration and any new strategic approach.
scrutinise the level and quality of governance and administration of the scheme, challenging and directing service providers to improve performance of administration tasks, focus on continuous improvement and value for money and identify opportunities to enhance the range and quality of communication with and assistance for members of the Scheme;
challenge the performance of the service providers; benchmarking the scheme administration, identify and promote good practice and address any areas of weakness with the service providers;
establish the effectiveness, efficiency and value for money of Scheme administration;
oversee the procurement of administration services , making recommendations on the scope of the service, budget, evaluation criteria and signing off preferred provider proposals;
commission additional services from the administrator to meet changing needs of the membership and employer;
ensure the scheme administrator supports the employers to communicate the benefits of the Scheme;
ensure that the administrator supports the Scheme’s members with a range of tools to improve their understanding of the pension benefits;
develop and manage an internal controls risk management framework;
work with the Scheme’s administrator to insure pension data quality;
oversee the development of processes and systems to incorporate any new statutory requirements;
oversee and provide challenge to Scheme budget forecasting;
ensure that an effective audit strategy is in place for the scheme and approve and monitor audit delivery plans;
monitor common areas of complaints and disputes, addressing issues arising from cases referred to the internal dispute resolution procedure and/or the Pension Ombudsman; and
any such other matters as the Scheme Manager determines from time to time.

ANNEX B

Police Pension Board Appointment and Removal Rules

These rules set out the procedures which have been agreed and adopted by the Board for the appointment and removal of Representatives (i.e. the Employer and Scheme Member Representatives and Independent Board Members.

Appointment of Representative Board Members

Nomination and selection procedure

Representative Board Members will be chosen by way of a two stage nomination and selection process as follows:

Nomination Process

The Employer Representative Board Members are nominated by the Scheme Managers.

Individuals are only eligible to be nominated as a Board Member if they meet the Eligibility Criteria is as follows:

The Employer Representatives must be the Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey and Sussex Police, the Head of Employee Services for Surrey and Sussex Police
The Scheme Member Representatives from both Surrey and Sussex must be a member of the Federation, the Superintendents Association for both Surrey and Sussex and at least two other current members of the scheme.

Selection Process

If more Board Members have been nominated than are required, the Chair of the Board will select who will serve on the Board.

Term of Office and Removal of Representative Employer and Member Representative Board Members

Employer and Employee Representatives are appointed for a period of 3 years from the date of establishment of the Board or the date of their appointment, if later.
The period may be extended up to 3 years if jointly agreed by the Scheme Manager and Chair.
Any Board Member may be re-appointed for further terms in line with the nomination process above

An appointment will automatically cease if:

A Board Member no longer meets the Eligibility Criteria;
A Board Member has a conflict of interest which, in the opinion of the Scheme Managers (on the advice of the Chair), cannot be managed in accordance with the Pension Board Conflict of Interest Policy;
A Board Member dies or, in the opinion of the Board, becomes incapable of acting; and
A Board Member wishes to resign, and has given one month’s notice in writing to the Chair.

Further, if a Board Member fails to attend meetings or otherwise comply with the requirements of being a Board Member, for example fails to attend the necessary knowledge and understanding training, then the Chair of the Board and the Scheme Managers can decide, whether the member should be given an opportunity to change their behaviour. Where issues of this nature arise, the Chair will hold an initial informal discussion with the Board Member about these concerns.

Where a vacancy arises for a representative member mid-term the nomination process will apply.

Review of the Terms of Reference

The Board will keep these Terms of Reference under review having due regard to the 2015 Regulations, the Code of Practice and guidance (statutory or otherwise). The Board will amend these Terms of Reference as and when it sees fit in accordance with section 3 of these terms.

Minutes

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 25 May 2022 at 2pm

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Kelvin Menon

Protective Marking: Official

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Kelvin Menon (KM), CFO Surrey OPCC

Iain McCulloch (IM), CFO Sussex OPCC

Danielle Mead (DMD), Surrey Federation

Donna Lonsdale (DL), Sussex Federation,

Tom Budd (TB), Superintendent’s Association – Surrey Police

Miles Ockwell (MO), Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Tony Suter (TS), Scheme Member Representative – Surrey NARPO

Graham Bradley (GB), Scheme Member Representative – Sussex NARPO

Peter Gillett (PG), Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Daisanne Summersfield (DS), Head of Shared Business Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford (AR), Head of Employee Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Carwyn Hughes, Head of Digital, Data & Technology for Surrey & Sussex Police

Advisors: Cassidy Gillett (CG), Michelle Quirk (MQ) Isobel Tait (IT) & Shelia Love, Surrey & Sussex Pensions Team

Guests:

CC Gavin Stephens (GS), Scheme Manager for Surrey Police

CC Jo Shiner (JS), Scheme Manager for Sussex Police

Adam Holt (AH)Equinity

Minutes: Rachel Lupanko (RL), Office Manager, OPCC

Item

Notes

Actions / Owner

Welcomes, Apologies & Conflicts of Interest:

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, thanked them for joining and the meeting was declared quorate. Carwyn Hugues was welcomed to his first Pension Board meeting.

Apologies had been received prior to the meeting from Gavin Stephens, Jo Shiner, Adrian Rutherford and Danielle Mead.

No conflicts of interest were declared.

Minutes / Action from Previous Meeting:

The minutes of the 2^nd of February’s Joint Pension Board were checked and found to be a true reflection of the meeting and were approved by the Board.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2 Cont.	Joint Pension Board Actions:
	Action JB 2021-04 – Pension Board Budget – See item 8 of this agenda – OPEN	SL/DS/RL
	Action JB 2021-06: Pension Administrator – Repeat contact stats now included in report - closed
	Action JB 2021-17: Risk Register – See Item 7 of this agenda - OPEN	IM/DS
	Action JB 2021-18: Discretions Policy – still a work in progress - OPEN	CG
	Action JB 2021-19: Pension Remedy - Letters have gone out to affected individuals - Closed
	Action 2021-21: Work Plan – Evans & Ashcroft - Have worked with XPS on this, cost equivalent with Equinity - on the plan but won’t happen until transfer to new Administrator is complete - OPEN	DS
	Action 2022-01 – Template letters – copies of the letters to be shared with the Board for their information and comment before being sent out to Scheme members – as the letters have now been sent this action is closed.
	Action 2022-03: Equinity Quarter 4 Report to be distributed to the Board as soon as it is available- distributed – Closed Sussex Actions:
	Action 2022-06: Sussex’s Outstanding Actions to be added to Joint Pension Board Action log for next meeting – OPEN	RL
	Action PPB/007/2020-7 – GMP Reconciliation – See item 6 of this Agenda - to be added to the JB Action log - OPEN	AH
	Action PPB/008/2020-2: – Pop up Survey on the portal – work ongoing - to be added to the JB Action log OPEN	AH
3	Risk and Issue Register: The Risk Register was confirmed as the version that had come to the Board in February as no updated version had been received. It was agreed that an updated version was required for each quarterly meeting.
	Action 2022-09: The Risk Register is to be updated for each quarterly meeting, the Risks highlighted in the NPCC letter, opt out rates and the cost of living rise are all to be added to the Risk Register. The Risk Register is to be circulated to Board Members prior to the next meeting so that they have the chance to come back with any comments prior to the meeting.	CG
	Risk 1.5 was agreed to be a short-term risk, the pension administration transfer is on track for November, a project plan is in place and regular meetings were being held with both XPS and Equinity to manage the risk.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
3 Cont.	A question was asked regarding the scanning in of paper documents and it was confirmed that all files were now in the one place and a procurement process was in hand to make sure that the documents complied with data protection timelines, this has proved more complex than originally anticipated. The team may require input form the Pension Board as part of a scoring process for the procurement exercise.
4	Pension Administrator Summary: Adam Holt introduced himself to the Board, he confirmed that he is the new Relationship Manager replacing MC and he and BR were still looking after all of the Police contracts. AH apologised that he did not have the Q4 reports to hand, although the Board had them, so could not comment on them but the even though improved the Quarter 1 report KPI’s were still below where he would like them to be. There has been a restructure within which meant they hadn’t been able to deliver the service as well as they would have liked. A new work tracking system was in place and they were actively recruiting more staff, but this would take time. Calls to the helpdesk were up but this was reflected across the board and not just for police pensions. Looking to build on the data collected regarding the calls. Members of the Board raised concerns of the KPI scores and the delays in handling queries for Officers approaching retirement. AH confirmed that the Surrey Police Pension’s Team were now sending a list to Equinity of forthcoming retirements for the next three months, this was happening on a monthly basis, and this enabled them to cross reference. The team were looking at their ways of working to enable them to put the focus on the cases that needed the most time and attention. The inconsistency in the axis across the graphs in the quarterly reports was pointed out. Equinity agreed to standardise this
	Action 2022-10 – To standardise the Y axis on the graphs within the report so that they are consistent.	AH
	The automated response email generated by Equinity was discussed, the wording in the response stated that ‘personal information was sent at their scheme members own risk’ and this had caused concern amongst scheme members as they thought perhaps the Equinity servers had been hacked. AH confirmed that Equinity’s servers had not been hacked, but that there are inherent risks in sending personal information via the internet and people needed to be reminded of that. He had raised the wording of the auto response as an issue with the Information Security Team to see if it could be softened. AH confirmed he was happy to share any relevant information with the Scheme Member Reps on the Board, this would enable them to update their scheme members. The increase in deaths in the 1^st quarter was noted, AH confirmed there usually was an increase in the number of deaths at this particular time of year. Although there had been an increase in numbers they were being dealt with in a timely manner and this was testament to the improvements Equinity had made.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
4 Cont.	The Board acknowledged the assurance they had been given and AH confirmed that Equinity would continue to support members and deliver their service as best they could up until the end of the contract. They have an internal Project Board working on the transition which keeps the admin team free to do the day-to-day work. It was noted that complaints were mainly to do with delays, but this should improve going forward. The membership movement report was blank – there had been an issue with the running of the raw data, it had only arrived this morning, AH would populate the reports and send them on the Board.
	Action 2022-11 – Quarter 1 Reports – To populate the movement statistics with the raw data and reissue the reports to the Board by the end of the week.	AH
	A question was asked about the Equinity call centre’s performance. The call centre had been moved to Liverpool a few months ago and the Surrey Police Pension Team had received several complaints regarding the lack of response. AH stated that he was surprised and concerned by the issues raised as he was not aware of any complaints from other clients regarding this. All the call centre staff received training and should know most of the answers. If not, they had a set of scripts that they could refer to. It should only be the more obscure or complex cases that they wouldn’t be able to answer immediately and hence have to be referred. AH confirmed that he would look at this in more detail and feedback directly to the Pension Team - if they could give him a list of specific cases this would help. The Pension Team agreed to provide a list, this will be discussed further outside of the Pension Board at the weekly catch up meetings. The Chair thanked AH for his update.
5	Pension Remedy: The Board were informed that discussions were continuing at a national level on this area. The feedback on the online calculator for the 87 scheme was good, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes in terms of financial regulations, legislation and secondary regulations and so waiting to see what the outcome of this is and some of the challenges that these may present. In respect of Immediate Detriment, the advice from the Home Office and legal guidance had been not to pursue this any further. This had been communicated out to scheme members though various channels. It was confirmed that prior to the receipt of the legal advice Surrey/Sussex had already started to process 7 applications between the two forces and it had been agreed by the Scheme Managers that they should continue, despite the legal advice, as they felt they should honour the applications that were in train. There is currently no mechanism or appetite for the Scheme Managers to open this process up again. There may be risks in respect of the 7 individuals who have already been through the process. They had been made aware that this was at their own risk when they signed the consent form and understood that they may get a tax bill in the future or there may be other risks/implications as yet unknown. Immediate detriment is thought to affect approx. 100 scheme members across the two forces.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
5 Cont.	A lot of Data cleansing work is being done to make sure the data held is in the as accurate as possible to allow the Pensions Team to process the Pension Remedy when ready. The team have so far dealt with 400 plus queries in relation to this and engagement sessions had been held with the Rep bodies and these will be widened to include other stakeholders.
6	GMP Reconciliation: The Board were informed that the Bill had had its 3^rd reading in the House of Lords and this had included a number of amendments intended to allow the regulations to clarify and streamline the GMP conversion process. The Bill is now at its final stage. AH confirmed that Surrey was slightly ahead of Sussex in this, he was working with the Equinity GMP team to find out exactly what is left to do and what can still be achieved before the transfer to XPS and would feed back to the Pensions Team once the full detail was known. DS advised the Board that she had been asking for updates for several months and was concerned that if the process was not completed before the handover it would lead to additional costs. AH was asked to make this a priority. Concerns were raised about the amount of notice people are given regarding adjustments made to their pensions, AH confirmed that they receive at least 3 months advance notice to any changes in their pension payments.
7	Report on Scheme Membership: The Board had received the membership stats for Sussex and were informed that Surrey’s figures were unavailable at this time due to a system issue. The Board agreed it would be useful to have some comparison with national opt out figures and for the report to cover the last 5 years as they felt the impact of covid on the figures would be interesting to see. Affordability and Gender inequality was discussed as the stats show more people aged 26-35 have opted out and more female officers than male officers. The Board were informed that this is not just reflected in police pensions but across the private and public sector as well. The Pensions team are looking to do some further research on this and potentially some gender focused campaigning to raise awareness of the impact of opting out of a pension scheme. It was agreed that this would remain on the agenda for the next meeting.
8	Pension Board Budget, Fees & Expenses Policy & Procedure: The Board were informed that the policy and procedure had been drafted but was not quite ready in time for this meeting as some decisions still needed to be made re the amount of budget, who would administer it etc, this will remain on the agenda for the next meeting.
9	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey and Sussex: The Board was informed that there were no Breaches in this quarter for Surrey or Sussex.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
10	Work Plan: The Board were informed that there were no changes to the road map from the last quarter, it is hoped Evans and Ashcroft could be cleared off of the plan by the end of the year. Equinity is working on producing an updated common data scoring report which will be used to look at some improvements and data cleansing opportunities. Still waiting for a confirmed timeline for when the Pensions dashboard will be implemented for the public sector but there had been a bit of pushback nationally due to potential of this clashing with the pension remedy. The Members were asked to feedback anything else they felt should be added to the work plan to CG outside of the meeting.
11	Pension Board Training: The Board noted the report and Members were asked to complete any outstanding training requirements. The CIPFA Training for Pension Board Members had been attended by two of the officers who attend this board, there was no issues raised at the training that the Board needed to be aware of. It was not known if the training on the Pension Regulators website for Board Members had changed in any way.
	Action 2022-12: To check the Pension Regulators online training for Pension Board Members to see if there have been any changes or additions and feed back to the Board	CG
12	Any Other Business: None.
13	Date of next meeting: The date of the next meeting was confirmed as 24/08/2022 at 14:00.
14	Exclusion Notice: The Chair read out the Exclusion Notice in full and thanked CA and MC for joining the meeting. The public part of the meeting closed at 13:15.

The Chair thanked everyone for their attendance at the meeting and noted that Pete Gillett would not be around for the next meeting as he was moving on to pastures new. Pete was thanked for his expertise and sage advice and the Board wished him all the best for the future.

The meeting closed at 16:08

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

23/11/2022

21/02/2023

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 2 February 2022 at 1pm

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Iain McCulloch

Protective Marking: Official

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Kelvin Menon (KM), CFO Surrey OPCC

Iain McCulloch (IM), CFO Sussex OPCC

Danielle Mead (DMD), Surrey Federation

Daren Egan (DE), Sussex Federation,

Tom Budd (TB), Superintendent’s Association – Surrey Police

Miles Ockwell (MO), Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Tony Suter (TS), Scheme Member Representative – Surrey NARPO

Graham Bradley (GB), Scheme Member Representative – Sussex NARPO

Peter Gillett (PG), Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Daisanne Summersfield (DS), Head of Shared Business Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford (AR), Head of Employee Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Carwyn Hughes, Head of Digital, Data & Technology for Surrey & Sussex Police

Advisors: Cassidy Gillett (CG), Johanna Langley (JL) Isobel Tait (IT) & Louise Monk (LM) – Surrey/Sussex Police

Guests:

CC Gavin Stephens (GS), Scheme Manager for Surrey Police

CC Jo Shiner (JS), Scheme Manager for Sussex Police

Mark Chapman (MC), Equinity

Minutes: Rachel Lupanko (RL), Office Manager, OPCC

Item

Notes

Actions / Owner

Welcomes, Apologies & Conflicts of Interest:

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, thanked them for joining and the meeting was declared quorate. The Chair also welcomed Clair Alcock from the NPCC to the meeting and informed the Board that Clair had kindly agreed to give a presentation to the Board under Item 6 which would be moved up the Agenda so that Clair could leave once she had completed her presentation if she wished.

Apologies had been received prior to the meeting from Gavin Stephens, Jo Shiner and Carwyn Hughes who is replacing Dave Miller on the Board following Dave’s retirement but Carwyn had been unable to attend this meeting.

No conflicts of interest were declared.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2	Minutes / Action from Previous Meeting: The minutes of the 10^th November 2021 Joint Pension Board we checked and apart from one small typo found to be a true reflection of the meeting and were approved by the Board.
	Joint Pension Board Actions:
	Action JB 2021-04 – Pension Board Budget – DS has been liaising with Miranda, this in hand and paper will be provided for next Board meeting – OPEN	DS
	Action JB 2021-05 – Amend the Risk Register to reflect the comments of the Board – Risk Register had been updated to show both a risk owner and risk manager and added two new risks, sustainability of the Pension Board and Pension Team - Closed
	Action JB 2021-06: Pension Administrator - To consider how repeat contact about the same query can be picked up and measured as part of the KPI stats – MC confirmed that calls had now been transitioned over to their Contact Centre which does allow for a wider range of reporting and this will be incorporated into the next quarterly report. – OPEN	MC
	Action JB 2021-07: Amend Work Plan re the Annual Report and Discretions Policy – Workplan updated see Item 8 of this Agenda – Closed
	Action JB 2021-15: Risk Register - 1.2 Update Risk Register to include concerns re the number of paper files still be scanned into the system – See item 4 of this Agenda - Closed
	Action JB 2021-16: Risk Register - 1.4 Review Scoring to better reflect concerns – Risk Register updated - Closed
	Action JB 2021-17: Risk Register - Write to SAB Chair to query the national opt out rates and raise the Boards concerns about at what point the opt out rates impact on the scheme funding, that new recruits can’t afford living costs and to be able to pay into a pension. To ask what modelling the Treasury / Home Office has done around this and if the Pay Body have considered the affordability of deductions. IM advised the Board he needed to review where he had got to with this inquiry. DS confirmed that she will follow this up with the Comms Team and that this was a work in progress - OPEN	IM DS
	Action JB 2021-18: Discretions Policy - Send a copy of the consultation document and timeline to the Board Members and included the Boards involvement in the discretions process into the policy. This had not yet been done, CG will pick this up - OPEN	CG
	Action JB 2021-19: Pension Remedy - AR & DS to Link up re national communications and MW and JL to link up re local communications. – it was confirmed that template letters have been shared with all forces and the letters are in the process of being sent out to affected individuals in each category, this process will be completed shortly as the 1^st of April is a critical date for all individuals effected and we need to let them know they are impacted and with as much detail as we are able - OPEN	AR/DS/ MW/JL
Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2 Cont.	Action 2021-20: Work Plan – Evans & Ashcroft - Check to see if Equinity have received any direct requests. – MC confirmed that Equinity had received an individual contact; they had reviewed the case in question and following a review the determination was that there was no reduction in 2010 so there was no balance to redress. Equinity had done some further analysis and had come up with approx. 360 scheme members potentially in scope. It hard to believe only one member had made a claim, GB expressed his concern that there may be a communications issue. He felt he had had done his bit to raise awareness and confirmed he was happy to leave it where it is, so long as the pensions team acknowledged the sense of fairness in the outcome of the judgment and that members should be repaid if they are owed money. DS confirmed that she absolutely agreed and stated that she wanted to communicate to everyone, was talking with the new service provider on what piece of work that they can do in on communication in the future. Agreed we need to do something now and will be do something, this was why JL had got the numbers of affected scheme member who would be in scope from Equinity, but the how the when the why and the wherefores were still to be worked out and costed. The Board agreed that this is probably the biggest issue affecting scheme members particularly those that are within the immediate detriment category and are looking to make those life choices around retirement within next six months. They are desperately short of information to help them make an informed, decision. Members of the Board appreciated the National situation and that we are waiting for updates from the Government but with the last communication withdrawing the advice to the forces on how to progress immediate detriment and signposted members back to either the Staff Associations or AAP who don’t have any more information to give. It was confirmed that the Pension Team are working on amending one of the template letters that came out last week from the NPCC, this template letter will then be shared with the Board Members for their view – Closed
	Action 2021-21: Work Plan – Evans & Ashcroft - To review workload and feed back to Board Members with a proposal and rationale, still a work in progress - OPEN	DS
	Action 2022-01 – Template letter – Copy of the template letter to be sent to Scheme Members who have been identified as being potentially in scope to be shared with the Board for their information and comment before being sent out to Scheme Members - OPEN	DS/CG

Item			Notes			Actions / Owner
		Sussex Outstanding Actions:
		Action PPB/007/2020-7 – GMP Reconciliation – MC confirmed he now has the data reports and will send them across to JL – To be added to the next agenda - OPEN			MC RL
		Action PPB/008/2020-1 - Call back service – Contact has now moved over to Central Contact Centre who provide 24/7 cover – Closed
		Action PPB/008/2020-2 – Pop up Survey – MC stated that this had not yet moved forwards, he has been concentrating on the functionality of the portal, the release of the functionality and the messaging surrounding this, once this is done this is the next item on the list and he will be reviewing the list with the Pensions Team - OPEN			MC
	Action PPB/008/2020-3 – Further functionality of the Portal – GB felt this action was not for him and would like this corrected – agreed. It had arisen out of request to have survivor benefits added to the portal at the start of the pandemic, but this could now move into the background as a nice to have, not a necessity – MC confirmed this is on the list that he will be reviewing with the Pensions Team - Closed
	Action PPB/008/2020-7 – Opt Outs – Agreed discharged, this is now an item on the Agenda - Closed
	Action PPB/008/2020-9 – Contractual Obligations – All in hand - Closed
	Action PPB/009/2021-4 – Intranet update re Web portal – Complete – Closed
6				Pension Remedy: The Chair thanked CA for agreeing to give a presentation to the Board. CA confirmed that her background was in policing and police pensions. The presentation was to address unknowns that had grown up around the Pension Remedy. The Board thanked CA for her clear presentation which they had found very useful. CA confirmed that her presentation would be sent to the Board and could be shared with colleagues The Board thanked CA for her clear presentation which they had found very informative. CA confirmed that her presentation would be sent to the Board and could be shared with colleagues
3				Report on Scheme Members: The Board were informed that this report is not yet available as it forms part of a larger project which is looking at the opt out rates by age, gender, length of service and linking in with the survey results on what had made them opt out in the first place. The survey is currently being drafted wand work is ongoing with Comms to get the message out.
				Action 2022-02 – Data analysis on Opt out rates to be shared with the Board once it becomes available.	MQ
Item			Notes			Actions / Owner
4				Risk and Issue Register: The Risk Register was reviewed, the concerns raised at the last meeting had been incorporated into the Risk Register and no changes were made at this meeting.
5				Pension Administrator Summary: MC apologised that the quarterly report had not been produced in time for the meeting, there had been problems running the data extracts as they had moved to an integrated work management system and were having difficulty extracting the data they needed for the report. There were concerns raised at the last meeting over the KPI scores and the number of held over items, MC confirmed that these figures would comparable to the last quarterly report but would be back within target in the next report as they now had more people on the team and more structure to the service they were able to provide. The Chair sated it was disappointing to not to have the report provided in time for the meeting.
				Action 2022-03: Equinity Quarter 4 Report to be distributed to the Board as soon as it is available	MC
				MC confirmed he is moving on to a new role within Equinity and was thanked by the Board for his contribution and wished good luck in his new role. It was confirmed that BR will be returning as the Relationship Manager for Surrey and Sussex taking over from JK and BR will introduce Adam Holt, the new Relationship Manager who is taking over from MC at the next meeting. The Board voiced concerns over the change in personnel, MC confirmed he would still be around so it would be a close and well managed transition. GB raised that the NARPO contributions had not been deducted from the February pension payments, the same problem had occurred last year but thought it had been resolved. MC agreed to take this away and look into the matter. There had been one complaint raised in the last quarter, MC confirmed this was in particular complaint was in hand and they were going to do a review of a sample of similar cases to make sure not of those had been effected.
7				Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey and Sussex: No Breaches had been reported in this quarter for Surrey or Sussex.
8				Work Plan: The Work Plan had been updated in line with the Boards comments at the last meeting and the GMP reconciliation immediate detriment has been added. More clarity was requested on the comment re awaiting further guidance for public sector schemes.
				Action 2022-04: To add more clarity around ‘further guidance re public sector schemes’ re expectations, timescales etc.
9				Pension Board Training: The Board noted the report.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
10	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update: The Board felt that the reports received in their current format did not give them an overview of how long the cases were taking to process etc. AR confirmed that he sat on the OCC Health Collaboration Board who had oversight of the actual process which should normally take about 12 months, due to delays in the NHS due to Covid, this period was likely to increase. It was confirmed that the Surrey Board had asked for these reports initially as they wished to understand if the number of people seeking ill health retirement had increased or decreased over a period of time but had never been able get information in a report form that covered this. It was agreed that as there was good governance over the process in both Surrey and Sussex the Board would only receive a report by exception and not keep it as a standard agenda item.
12	Any Other Business: None.
13	Date of next meeting: The date of the next meeting was confirmed as 24/08/2022 at 14:00.
14	Exclusion Notice: The Chair read out the Exclusion Notice in full and thanked CA and MC for joining the meeting. The public part of the meeting closed at 13:30.

The Chair thanked everyone for their attendance at the meeting,

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

24/08/2022
23/11/2022
21/02/2023

Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 10/11/2021 at 12:00 – 14:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Iain McCulloch

Protective Marking: Official

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Kelvin Menon (KM), CFO Surrey OPCC

Iain McCulloch (IM), CFO Sussex OPCC

Dave Miller (DML), Assistant Chief Constable, Surrey & Sussex Police

Danielle Mead (DMD), Surrey Federation

Daren Egan (DE), Sussex Federation,

Tom Budd (TB), Superintendent’s Association – Surrey Police

Miles Ockwell (MO), Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Tony Suter (TS), Scheme Member Representative – Surrey NARPO

Graham Bradley (GB), Scheme Member Representative – Sussex NARPO

Peter Gillett (PG), Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Daisanne Summersfield (DS), Head of Shared Business Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford (AR), Head of Employee Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Advisors: Cassidy Gillett (CG), Johanna Langley (JL) Isobel Tait (IT) & Louise Monk (LM) – Surrey/Sussex Police

Guests:

CC Gavin Stephens (GS), Scheme Manager for Surrey Police

CC Jo Shiner (JS), Scheme Manager for Sussex Police

Mark Chapman (MC), Equinity

Minutes: Rachel Lupanko (RL), Office Manager, OPCC

Item

Notes

Actions / Owner

Welcomes, Apologies & Conflicts Of Interest:

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and the meeting was declared quorate by the Chair.

Apologies had been received prior to the meeting from Gavin Stephens, Daisanne Summersfield, Miles Ockwell, Cassidy Gillett & Mark Chapman. The chair welcomed Melanie Warnes (MW) who was representing the Federation on behalf of Danielle Mead, Jo Banks (JB) who was representing the Superintendent’s Association on behalf of Miles Ockwell and John Kakatsos (JL) who was representing Equinity on behalf of Mark Chapman.

No conflicts of interest were declared at this meeting.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2	Minutes / Action from Previous Meeting: The minutes of the 22^nd of July’s Joint Pension Board and the minutes of the Extraordinary meeting of the 13^th of October were both found to be a true reflection of these meeting and were approved by the Board.
	Sussex Outstanding Actions:
	Action PPB/007/2020-7 – GMP Reconciliation – No update at this meeting - Ongoing	MC
	Action PPB/008/2020-1 - Call back service – No update at this meeting – Ongoing - OPEN	MC
	Action PPB/008/2020-2 – Pop up Survey – No update at this meeting - Ongoing - OPEN	MC
	Action PPB/008/2020-3 – Further functionality of the Portal – GB not yet spoken to Equinity about this – Ongoing - OPEN	GB
	Action PPB/008/2020-7 – Opt Outs – No update at this meeting - OPEN	DS
	Action PPB/008/2020-9 – Contractual Obligations - See item 4 of this Agenda – Ongoing - OPEN	DS
	Action PPB/008/2020-10 – Guidance on PPS 1987 Regulations Survivor pensions –Discretions Policy complete - see item 5 of this Agenda - Closed
	Action PPB/009/2021-2 – Data Breach – No update at this meeting - OPEN	DS
	Action PPB/009/2021-4 – Intranet update re Web portal – no update at this meeting – OPEN	DS/CG
	Implementation Sub Board Outstanding Actions Meeting 1 Action 7: Indemnity Insurance – Confirmed in place – Closed Meeting 2 Action 2: Set dates for future meetings – awaiting availability of the Chair – Completed – Closed This completed all outstanding actions for the Implementation Sub Board
	Joint Pension Board Actions:
.	Action JB 2021-04 – Pension Board Budget – no update at this meeting – OPEN	DS
	Action JB 2021-05 – Amend the Risk Register to reflect the comments of the Board – As KE has left the organisation this had not been completed, will be done in time for next meeting - OPEN	JL
	Action JB 2021-06: To consider how repeat contact about the same query can be picked up and measured as part of the KPI stats – no update at this meeting – OPEN	MC
	Action JB 2021-07: Amend Work Plan re the Annual report and Discretions policy – As KE has left the organisation this had not been completed, will be done in time for the next meeting - OPEN	JL

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
3	Risk and Issue Register: The new Risk Register for the Joint Board was reviewed, JL apologised that it had not been updated since the last meeting and confirmed it would be done in time for the next meeting. 1.2 Member Data Incomplete or inaccurate - Concerns were raised about the number of paper records that are still being held and what the plans were for updating the computer records. It was confirmed that there are still 85 boxes of paper documents waiting to be scanned onto the system.
	Action JB 2021-15: 1.2 Update Risk Register to include concerns re the number of paper files still be scanned into the system	JL
	1.4 Membership Communications – The Board felt the scoring for this did not reflect the concerns over the Pensions Savings Statements, Scheme Pays, Member access to the portal and lack of timely responses.
	Action JB 2021-16: 1.4 Review Scoring to better reflect concerns	JL
	The Board discussed concerns around the high opt out rates in Surrey & Sussex currently 7.7% and opt out rates in the Scheme overall. It was agreed that as good communications were in place for new recruits in Surrey & Sussex it did not need to go on the Risk Register as a separate issue at this moment in time but may do in the future.
	Action JB 2021-17: Write to SAB Chair to query the national opt out rates and raise the Boards concerns about at what point the opt out rates impact on the scheme funding, that new recruits can’t afford living costs and to be able to pay into a pension. To ask what modelling the Treasury / Home Office has done around this and if the Pay Body have considered the affordability of deductions.	IM
4	Pension Administrator Summary: JK apologised for the lateness of the Quarterly reports and the disappointing KPI scores. He explained that this was due to 3 issues, People/Process and Technology, that an experienced person has now taken accountability to bring the team back to where it should be. A presentation was given to the Board on the Plans to rectify the situation: People - there were recruitment challenges so internal staff were to be used to cover the gaps in the Team. Process – There had been a restructure allowing the business to make changes more quickly and a continuous improvement programme was in place to allow for more efficiency and build resilience. Technology – now more automation within the team with end to end automation and this month, enhanced active retirement quotations would be available to scheme members. Protecting the quality of the information was just as important. Immediate detriment – the calculations are done by a separate team, the scenarios to be presented to scheme members can be complicated.
Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
4 Cont.	The Chair thanked JK for the presentation which was important for giving assurance whilst the two organisations continued to work together. JK confirmed that the project plan is being reviewed and progress against the plan will be shared with the Surrey Police Pensions Team at their regular monthly meetings and also between the meetings. The Board queried what had gone wrong in the last quarter and JK explained that there had been a 57% backlog from the previous quarter which had progressed into this quarter and the knock on effect would again be felt in the next quarter as well. The Board queried what the priority for the workload was and JK explained that if it had financial implications for the member it went into the priority bucket and if not a different bucket. There had not been enough resources to empty both of the buckets. The Board expressed their disappointment, the resourcing demand was a known demand and therefore should be staffed accordingly. JK confirmed that as far as he was aware all of the annual Pension Statements had been issued on time but if anything was outstanding to let him know outside of the meeting and he would progress with the team. JK again apologised for the lateness of the quarterly reports, the team are getting back to green on activities for Surrey and Sussex and he will liaise with JL re this.
5	Discretions Policy: AR informed the Board that the Policy was due to be reviewed, the Board were asked to consider the Policy and if there were any comments or views these could be fed back to the team to enable a final version to be drafted ready for the next Board meeting. A consultation document will be sent out to the Board with timeline attached. The Boards involvements in the decisions relating to the discretions process was discussed.
	Action JB 2021-18: Send a copy of the consultation document and timeline to the Board Members and included the Boards involvement in the discretions process into the policy.
6	Pension Remedy Latest Update: It was confirmed that the process for doing immediate detriment and the policy and procedure around ID and what that entails for Officers should be available by the end of the month. Communication would be going out about this after Christmas to enable Officers to make informed choices. The communications coming out from the National Team had been disappointing. JK informed the Board that the HMRC had released some tax guidance re immediate detriment which may trigger more people to retire, the communications around this were very important.
	Action JB 2021-19: AR & DS to Link up re national communications and MW and JL to link up re local communications.	AR/DS/ MW/JL
7	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey and Sussex: No Breaches had been reported in this quarter for Surrey or Sussex.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
8	Work Plan: It was confirmed that Evans and Ashcroft had been added to the Work Plan, was in the forefront of the teams’ mind and any applications would be dealt with on a case by case basis. JK confirmed he was not aware of Equinity receiving any requests directly, but GB felt that this might be because members may not be aware and would like a more active stance to be taken, he had contacted the NARPO branch secretary who will contact the NARPO members but this would not include any members of the scheme who were not NARPO members and reminded the Board that any complaints about this would go to the pensions ombudsman. It was confirmed that details of those scheme members effected across Surrey and Sussex would be available and these members could be contacted directly to make them aware of what they needed to do but concerns were voiced over the impact this might have on the Pensions Teams workload, a review is to be carried out and feedback given to the Board Member, it was agreed that this was a sensible approach.
	Action 2021-20: Check to see if Equinity have received any direct requests.	JK
	Action 2021-21: To review workload and feed back to Board Members with a proposal and rationale.	DS
9	Pension Board Training: The Chair reminded Board Members to complete their online training if they had any modules still outstanding. The pension scams training had been particularly informative.
10	Sussex Pension Board Annual Report: The draft report was now complete, and the Chair apologised for the delay in getting this finished. He reminded the Board that this was the last single Board report as from next year, it would be a joint Surrey/Sussex Board report. JS thanked the Sussex Board Members for their work on the Board in the previous year and stated that she was aware that GS, had he been at the meeting, would also have expressed his thanks to the Surrey Board. One change was requested to the wording of the report in relation to Evans and Ashcroft.
	Action 2021-22: Change of wording to be sent to IM to be included in the report. Final version of the report to be sent to the SAB Chair.	GB / IM
11	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update: The Board were informed that there had been a steady flow of applications, the delays in the NHS was having an impact on the timings of the applications. Injury on Duty reviews – LM is currently waiting for details from Equinity of numbers of cases.

Item		Notes	Actions / Owner
11 Cont.	AR thank LM for her hard work, he informed the Board she was the most proficient in the country, dealing with members and their families at their most difficult time which was not easy. The Board also expressed their thanks to LM
12		Any Other Business: None.
13		Date of next meeting: The date of the next meeting was confirmed as 02/02/2021 at 01:00.
14		Exclusion Notice: The Chair read out the Exclusion Notice in full and thanked JK for joining the meeting. The public part of the meeting closed at 13:30.

The Chair thanked everyone for their attendance at the meeting, the meeting closed at 01:50

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

25/05/2022

24/08/2022

23/11/2022

21/02/2023

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer) Extra Ordinary Meeting

Date: 12/10/2021 at 08:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Iain McCulloch

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Kelvin Menon (KM), CFO Surrey OPCC

Iain McCulloch (IM), CFO Sussex OPCC

Peter Gillett (PG), Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Daisanne Summersfield (DS), Head of Shared Business Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford, Head of Employee Services, Surrey & Sussex Police

ACC Dave Miller (DML), Surrey & Sussex Police

Danielle Mead, (DMD), Surrey Federation

Daren Egan (DE), Sussex Federation

Tom Budd (TB), Superintendent’s Association – Surrey Police

Miles Ockwell (MO), Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Tony Suter (TS), Scheme Member Representative – Surrey NARPO

Graham Bradley (GB), Scheme Member Representative – Sussex NARPO

Advisors: Kelly Ellison (KE), Cassidy Gillett (CG), Johanna Langley (JL) Isobel Tait (IT) & Louise Monk (LM) – Surrey/Sussex Police

Guests:

CC Gavin Stephens (GS), Scheme Manager for Surrey Police

CC Jo Shiner (JS), Scheme Manager for Sussex Police

Minutes: Rachel Lupanko (RL), Office Manager, OPCC

Item

Notes

Actions / Owner

Welcomes, Apologies & Conflicts Of Interest:

The Chair welcomed everyone to the extraordinary Joint Surrey/Sussex Pension Board meeting, and confirmed that the Board were being asked to make a decision on the way forward for the Police Pension Administration Procurement, it was noted that this meeting was not quorate and it was agreed that members not currently at the meeting could be contacted by email following the meeting for their vote.

Apologies had been received prior to the meeting from Gavin Stephens, and ACC Dave Miller.

No conflicts of interest were declared at this meeting.

Exclusion Notice:

The Chair read out the Exclusion Notice in full The public part of the meeting closed at 08:10.

	Part Two (In Private)
Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
3	A Police Pension Administration Procurement Decision paper was presented to the Board. The Chair thanked DS & CG for the paper which had been clear and easy to read. DE joined the meeting at this point and it was noted that the Board was now quorate so a vote could take place at the meeting. Various questions were asked and answered, the Chair then asked the Members to vote on the decision to accept the recommendation in the report.
	Decision: The Board voted unanimously to accept the recommendation in the report, option B.
	It was noted that with the transfer and the pensions remedy there was a lot of work for the team, the Board agreed that resources would need to be kept under review. DS confirmed that CG would lead on this project and a project plan was being developed, this would be shared with the Board and Board. Members of the Board would be invited to take part in the process.
4	AOB: None

The Chair thanked everyone for their attendance at the meeting, the meeting closed at 08:50.

Future meetings are planned for:

10/11/2021

02/02/2022

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 22 July 2021 at 10:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Iain McCulloch

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Kelvin Menon (KM), CFO Surrey OPCC

Iain McCulloch (IM), CFO Sussex OPCC

Dave Miller (DML), Assistant Chief Constable, Surrey & Sussex Police

Danielle Mead, (DMD), Surrey Federation

Daren Egan (DE), Sussex Federation

Tom Budd (TB), Superintendent’s Association – Surrey Police

Miles Ockwell (MO), Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Tony Suter (TS), Scheme Member Representative – Surrey NARPO

Graham Bradley (GB), Scheme Member Representative – Sussex NARPO

Peter Gillett (PG), Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Daisanne Summersfield (DS), Head of Shared Business Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford (AR), Head of Employee Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Advisors: Kelly Ellison (KE), Cassidy Gillett (CG), Johanna Langley (JL) Isobel Tait (IT) & Louise Monk (LM) – Surrey/Sussex Police

Guests:

CC Gavin Stephens (GS), Scheme Manager for Surrey Police

CC Jo Shiner (JS), Scheme Manager for Sussex Police

Mark Chapman (MC), Equinity

Minutes: Rachel Lupanko (RL), Office Manager, OPCC

Item

Notes

Actions / Owner

Welcomes, Apologies & Conflicts Of Interest:

The Chair welcomed everyone to the 2^nd meeting of the Joint Surrey/Sussex Pension Board and this meeting was declared quorate.

Apologies had been received prior to the meeting from Gavin Stephens, Jo Shiner, and Adrian Rutherford.

The chair also welcomed Isobel Tait to the meeting; and it was confirmed that Isobel is the new Pension Project Support Officer who will be taking over the administration for the Board meetings.

No conflicts of interest were declared at this meeting.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2	Minutes / Action from Previous Meeting: The minutes of the 22^nd April’s Joint Pension Board meeting were found to be a true reflection of that meeting and were approved by the Board. Surrey Outstanding Actions:
	Action 138 – Quick Easy Guide – A joint guide – now available on the portal - Closed
	Sussex Outstanding Actions:
	Action PPB/007/2020-7 – GMP Reconciliation – MC confirmed that the data is to be loaded in the next week or two, the Data Solutions Team will be meeting soon to review data and plan a way forward. An update report should set deadlines and this will be shared with the Pensions Team - Ongoing	MC
	Action PPB/007/2020-14 – Completed/Discharged
	Action PPB/007/2020-16 - KE Continues to review this and will inform the Board when any new training available. Now business as usual – Completed / Discharged
	Action PPB/008/2020-1 - MC confirmed that call volumes were now stable with no noticeable peaks. A wider piece of work is taking place to move all calls from Crawley back to the main Contact Centre as they have greater capacity and can offer a call back service, which would result in a better service for callers – Ongoing - OPEN	MC
	Action PPB/008/2020-2 – Pop up Survey – MC confirmed that the additional content will go onto the site during this quarter – need to engage with web experts re the survey - Ongoing - OPEN	MC
	Action PPB/008/2020-3 – Further functionality of the Portal – GB not yet spoken to Equinity about this – Ongoing - OPEN
	Action PPB/008/2020-4 – Member training – 22/07/2021 as there is now a new Board this action is closed
	Action PPB/008/2020-5 – Risk Management Training – It was confirmed that the training had taken place and the Board Members had found this useful - Closed
	Action PPB/008/2020-7 – DS confirmed she is still working with the Comms Team but their capacity to help was limited, the meetings with DE had taken place and there is now more information available for new starters which is more of a story telling message - OPEN	DS
	Action PPB/008/2020-9 – See item 17 of this Agenda - OPEN	DS
	Action PPB/008/2020-10 – Guidance on PPS 1987 Regulations Survivor pensions – DS confirmed that the Discretions Policy was still being worked on, it will mirror the LGPS and Legal are pulling all the information together, which will then be reflected in the Policy - OPEN	DS

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2 Cont.	Action PPB/009/2021-2 – Data Breach – 19 people had been affected overall and not all letters had been returned. CIFAS services were being offered to all those affected. It had been agreed with the DPO, that there was no need to notify the Pensions Regulator as the breach did not meet the required criteria. GB queried how this decision had been made and what the role of the Pension Board was in this process, should they have been notified so that they could have a view? DS confirmed that this was an internal process with a matrix used in the determination. Share outside of this meeting, a copy of the matrix used and a paper to inform the Board on how this decision had been reached so that the Board could have a view, if the Board felt it needed to have be reported to the Pension Regulator then the Team would act accordingly. Any future breaches are also to be reported to the Board immediately (outside of the quarterly meetings) to enable them to have a timely view - OPEN	DS
	Action PPB/009/2021-4 – Now part of a wider strategy and a working group was being established – OPEN	DS/CG
	Implementation Sub Board Outstanding Actions Meeting 1 Action 7: Indemnity Insurance – still waiting for a response to this query – OPEN Meeting 2 Action 2: Set dates for future meetings – awaiting availability of the Chair - OPEN	PG IM/RL
	Meeting 2 Action 3: TOR – see item 3 of this Agenda - Closed
	Joint Pension Board Actions:
	Action JB 2021-01: Set up an Implementation Board meetings and invite those Members not at this meeting to attend – 3 Implementation Board meetings had taken place and had considered what legislation/guidance the Joint Board needed to take account of – see item 3 of this Agenda - Closed
	Action JB 2021-02: Work Plan: The work plan had been updated - Closed
	Action JB 2021-03: Pension Remedy – it was confirmed that the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) had taken this into consideration – Closed
3	Terms of Reference & Other Constitutional Pension Board Documents: TOR – The Implementation Sub Board had considered the working arrangements for the new Joint Pension Board. The TOR had been rewritten to reflect these considerations and the Scheme Managers of both Surrey and Sussex had approved the TOR for the Joint Board. The other Surrey constitutional documents had also been reviewed but only minor changes made and these now formed the basis of the constitutional documents for this Joint Board. The Members agreed to adopt the TOR and other policies and procedures.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
3 Cont.	Action JB 2021-04 - Follow up with Miranda re the budget for this Joint Pension Board.	DS
4	Risk and Issue Register: The new Risk Register for the Joint Board was reviewed, it was agreed that the Board needed a systematic way of grading the risks; and that the Risk Owner was not necessarily the same as the Risk Manager. The Board noted they were dependent on the Risk Owners or Managers escalating any risks to the Board. It was agreed that both the Risk Owner and Risk Manager should be identified on the Register and that the sustainability of the Pension Board and Pensions Team should be added as a Risk. The Chair thanked KE for her work on this.
	Action JB 2021-05 – Amend the Risk Register to reflect the comments of the Board.	KE
5	Pension Administrator Summary: MC apologised that there were still no joint KPI data available, this report had not been ready in time to share with the Board prior to this meeting but would be distributed to the Board as soon as it is available. Quarter 2 had been a challenge, with several pinch points within the team, which had reflected in the SLA results having a number of missed targets and this was disappointing. The exiting Team Manager had not been able to give a handover to the incoming Team Manager Simon Ellard although Simon had been able to join the weekly calls with the Surrey/Sussex Pension Team before he actually transferred over. There had been a number of retired members who had struggled to register on the Portal and had required assistance with this, the team had been able to resolve these issues but this had taken time. The installation and testing of the active member retirement calculations on the portal had also had an impact. The overall input uplift had resulted in the missing of some of the SLA targets although not by a significant amount of time. One area of challenge remained the transfers in and the divorce cases, the training and upskilling of the team was ongoing. The telephony centralisation back to the Call Centre would help with this, as it would increase capacity within the police pension’s admin team. The Surrey/Sussex work management system is currently siting on a separate system to everything else, once the calls are centralised this will all be on the one system, which should speed things up. Overtime would also be considered to clear the backlog of cases. The short guides for both schemes had been loaded onto the portal and the up take of registrations for the portal had increased by Surrey 38% and Sussex 35%. There had not been a spike in complaints in this quarter despite these issues. Questions were raised by the Members regarding the transfer of calls to the central Contact Centre, were those staff skilled or working from a script? Would they hand calls over to the team if they were unable to answer the query? MC confirmed they were trained call handlers, the calls would go through an appropriate ID&V process and would be transferred over to the Pensions Team or a request could be fed directly into the Admin Teams work queue.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
5 Cont.	It was acknowledged that the performance of the Contact Centre could damage the reputation of both Forces and Equinity if calls were not handled correctly, or not handled in a timely manner, or people had to keep going back because they did not get the quantitative data they needed in response to their query. Another issue discussed related to the over inflated quotations when nearing retirement age, leading to confusion when a more accurate quotation was issued nearer the actual retirement date Members sometimes had to go back two or three times to get the accurate data. MC acknowledged that it was important to be clear in terms of numbers and that the information given should be as accurate as possible. MC confirmed the Annual Events Team were focusing on the accuracy and timeliness of statements issued and acknowledged there isn’t currently a process to measure the statistics on this but would take this away and think about how this can be measured as part of the KPI’s. It was confirmed that more Tax Awareness sessions were being arranged
	Action JB 2021-06: To consider how repeat contact about the same query can be picked up and measured as part of the KPI stats.	MC
6	NPCC Pension Update: The Board noted the update.
7	Pension Remedy Latest Update: DS informed the Board that the HO had issued a 2^nd set of guidance and an Immediate Detriment report had gone to the Chief Officers group. A large proportion of Chief Officers had agreed they would do something within the tight framework on immediate detriment. In light of this, the team would have to go back and review the project plan that is already in place and look at the engagement sessions planned, the Comms focus etc. Governance is already in place. Currently working on the data/risks/numbers /cohorts with a large amount still unknown. The bill is to be put before parliament this week. The Board wanted to know if there was a risk if different forces were doing different things, as this was not the NPCC approach. DS confirmed that the NPCC has an overarching plan and it was good to have a common approach but that Surrey and Sussex would probably not wait for the guidance if this had not been issued by early September, will do nothing for now but as thing become clearer, this may change. HR consultants are already working with the team on this.
8	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey and Sussex: No Breaches had been reported in this quarter for Surrey or Sussex.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
9	Work Plan: The Chair thanked CG for her work on the new joint work plan and asked that the Annual Report be added to the first meeting in the new financial year and the date was updated in relation to the Discretions Policy. There had been an action (JB 2021-02) for Evans and Ashcroft to be added to the Work Plan and this had been done. This case related to the Ill Heath and injury component of the pensions for those who were also getting additional benefits from the DWP and possible over deductions. DS confirmed that any queries would be dealt with on a case by case basis and that she had no issue with GB sending information to the NARPO members to let them know. GB confirmed a questionnaire was being sent out which would help individuals assess if they may have a claim and this might cause a number of queries to come into the team. DS confirmed they would work through these but hoped the numbers actually affected would be very small.
	Action JB 2021-07: Amend Work Plan re the Annual report and Discretions policy.	CG
10	Pension Board Training: A new joint training log had been created and this was reviewed. It was noted that 3 new Members still needed to complete their Pension Regulator online training for Pension Board Members. RL confirmed that she would send/resend the link to the training to the new Board Members and asked that copies of the Sussex’s Board Member training certificates be sent on to her so that she could create a central record for the new Joint Board.
	Action JB 2021-08: Send copies of Sussex Member certificates to RL Send link to the Pension Regulator online training to new Members	KE RL
11	Pension Board Annual Report: The Board noted the Surrey Pension Board Annual Report. The Chair confirmed that the Sussex Annual Report had not yet been completed but would be and shared with the Sussex Member’s outside of the meeting. It was noted that the next annual report would be a joint report and would be written by the Chair.
	Action JB 2021-09: Take the Surrey Annual Report forwards to Scheme Manager and the SAB Chair. Write Sussex Annual Report, share with Sussex Board Members outside of this meeting and present to Sussex Scheme Manager and send to the SAB Chair.	KM IM

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
12	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update: DS confirmed that she was working with the OCC Health line manager to support the Boards request for year on year figures but that this had yet been resolved. The Boards role in the IHR process was queried and confirmed as that of an oversight role to make sure the process was being administered correctly.
13	Annual Board Expenditure Report: The Board noted the Surrey Board Expenditure report; it was acknowledged that the Sussex Board had not historically produced a report on its expenditure but in future a joint Expenditure report would be available.
14	Any Other Business: None.
15	Date of next meeting: Dates for the next two meetings were still to be established and RL confirmed she would be contacting all to check availability in the near future.
16	Exclusion Notice: The Chair read out the Exclusion Notice in full and thanked MC for joining the meeting. The public part of the meeting closed at 12.05pm.
	Part Two (In Private)

The Chair thanked everyone for their attendance at the meeting, the meeting closed at 12.15pm.

Future meetings are planned for:

10/11/2021

02/02/2022

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 22 April 2021 at 10:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Simon Patter (SP)

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Kelvin Menon (KM), CFO Surrey OPCC

Iain McCulloch (IM), CFO Sussex OPCC

Simon Patter (SP), Surrey Federation,

Daren Egan (DE), Sussex Federation,

Tom Budd (TB), Superintendent’s Association – Surrey Police

Nick May (NM), Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Tony Suter (TS), Scheme Member Representative – Surrey NARPO

Graham Bradley (GB), Scheme Member Representative – Sussex NARPO

Peter Gillett (PG), Executive Director of Commercial and Financial Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Daisanne Summersfield (DS), Head of Shared Business Services for Surrey & Sussex Police

Advisors: Kelly Ellison (KE), Cassidy Gillett (CG), Johanna Langley (JL) & Louise Monk (LM) – Surrey/Sussex Police

Guests:

CC Gavin Stephens (GS), Scheme Manager for Surrey Police

CC Jo Shiner (JS), Scheme Manager for Sussex Police

ACC Dave Miller (DM), ACC Sussex Police

Mark Chapman (MC), Equinity

Minutes: Rachel Lupanko (RL), Office Manager, OPCC

Item

Notes

Actions / Owner

Welcomes & Apologies:

The Chair welcomed everyone to the pilot meeting for a Joint Surrey/Sussex Pension Board and the meeting was declared quorate.

Apologies had been received prior to the meeting from Tom Budd, Dave Miller, Nick May and Louise Monk and during the meeting from Tony Suter who was unable to join the meeting as he was having IT issues.

No conflicts of interest were declared at the meeting.

The Chair informed the Board that after this meeting he would no longer be attending the Pension Board as the Federation Rep and introduced Danielle Mead (DM) who would be taking over his role within the Federation and proposed that Danielle to take his place on the Board, the Scheme Manager and Chair of the Surrey Board were content to accept this proposal.

The Members thanked Simon for his contribution to the Board over a number of years and wished him well for the future.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
2	Minutes / Action from Previous Meeting: Surrey – the minutes of the 28^th of January 2021 meeting were reviewed and accepted by the Surrey Members as a true record of the meeting.
	Action 138 – Quick Easy Guide – A joint guide has been produced and will be shared with the Board and published on the portal once final approval has been given. MC confirmed that it could be loaded onto the portal very quickly once the final version had been received - OPEN	CG/MC
	Action 150 – Joint Surrey Sussex Pension Board – As this is the first (pilot) Joint Board this action is closed.
	Action 162 - Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update – See item 11 of this Agenda – Closed.
	Action 170 - Retirement packs - now a larger piece of work looking at the retirement leaver experience, work in progress – Closed.
	Action 173 - Joint Pension Board - Send a summary of other Joint Pension Board’s governance structures and any further comments received to the Board – Closed.
	Action 179 – Pension Remedy - Send wording to be entered onto the Risk Register to RL – New joint risk register to be considered by the Implementation Board - Closed
	Action 180 – Review of Pension Board Privacy Statement – See item 12 of this Agenda - Closed
	Action 181: Review of Internal Dispute Resolution Policy & Procedure - See item 13 of this Agenda - Closed
	Action 182 – Pension Board Work Plan - – See item 6 of this Agenda - Closed
	Action 183 – Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update – see item 11 of this Agenda – Closed
	Sussex - the minutes of the 4^th of February 2021 meeting were reviewed and accepted by the Sussex Members as a true record of the meeting. IM ran through the Sussex action log:
	Action 2020-7 – GMP Reconciliation – MC confirmed that Equinity have a dedicated team working on this and will discuss any issues with the Surrey/Sussex Police Pensions team to identify any further actions – Ongoing
	Action 2020-1 – Equinity Call Back Service – MC confirmed that he had reviewed the stats and felt that the waiting times were reasonable, there were no issues at the moment as there was adequate coverage within the team - Closed
	2020-2 – Pop up Survey – MC confirmed that the roll out to deferred members has taken place and it would be interesting to see if this increased the access to the web portal, stats would be picked up in the next quarterly report - Ongoing

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
	2020-3 – Estimates for survivor benefits to be added to the portal – the calculations option for the active members is due to be released in the next few days – Closed
	2020-4 – Pension Board Member Training – see item 8 of this Agenda- Closed
	2020-5 - Risk Register Training for Board Members – both Surrey & Sussex Members had attended the Risk assessment training - Closed
	2020-7 – Promote pension scheme to new recruits – DS confirmed she has spoken to Connie re getting specific communications support for this and was informed this had been removed, DS to speak to AR about this. It was confirmed that Surrey will have 70 new recruits in June and Sussex are expecting 250 next year. The Board acknowledged that although the subject is only covered briefly within the new recruits training, it is a very important subject. DE offered to take part in the training session and DS welcomed this. Speak to Payroll to gain info on numbers opting out - OPEN	DS
	2020-9 – See item 18 of this Agenda - OPEN
	2020-10 – Guidance on PPS 1987 Regulations Survivor pensions – DS confirmed that Legal had been consulted, this now forms a wider piece of work and the policy was still being worked on - OPEN
	2021 – 1 – Contact details had been distributed to the Board - Closed
	2021-2 – Data Breach – Report from Equinity has been shared with Marcus Potter - Closed
	2021-4 – Update web portal with outcome of consultation –Completed - Closed
	A combined Risk Register for future meetings will be considered by the Implementation Board.
3	Surrey/Sussex Joint Pension Board Implementation Working Group: A short discussion was held around how the new Joint Board would work and what would be required to make it work. A draft Terms of Reference had been prepared for consideration. The Board agreed that an Implementation Board would need to work out the dynamics of the Board and formulate the other policy and procedures the Board were required to have and will bring these papers to the next Joint Board meeting. It was confirmed that this was a Governing Board not a Working Board. GS reiterated that he and the CC of Sussex were happy to continue with a Joint Board. The Members were asked to volunteer to take part in the Implementation Board. Several Members volunteered and PG offered to chair, those Members not attending this meeting are also to be invited to join.
	Action JB 2021-01: Set up Implementation Board meetings and invite those Members not at this meeting to attend.	RL

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
3 cont.	Consider what legislation/guidance the Implementation Board need to take into consideration in order to create the documents, policies and procedures the Joint Pension Board require to enable them to carry out their function.	PG
	CC Gavin Stephens left the meeting at this point, 10.45am
4	Pension Administrator Summary: Quarterly Update: Surrey: The Surrey Members reviewed the report and noted there had been a theme to the cases that had not met the SLA target in this quarter, these were all divorce cases and MC stated that expertise within the team was now limited, a skills matrix had been drawn up and he was now organising more training for those within the Police Pensions team. Sussex: The Sussex Members reviewed the report and noted that the missed SLA’s in this quarter had been across a broad spectrum of subjects. Call handling and missed calls were discussed and MC confirm that a greeting message was played when the call is received which pointed callers to the self-service portal. The Board agreed it would be interesting to know if this led to an uptake of scheme members accessing the portal as it would highlight what more needed to be done to get the message out. MC confirmed that they were looking to amalgamate the two reports into one for the joint board and would see what further information could be included in the report going forwards. Portal update: In mid-March deferred scheme members had been given registration information and this had led to 115 calls to the help desk re process problems, these were mostly from Sussex member who had issues with their NI numbers, now close to bottoming this out and will update CG & KE at the next weekly meeting. MC confirmed that the calculations function and the quick easy guide would be available on the portal shortly. The Surrey members confirmed that they had had a preview of the calculation function during a test run and that it had worked well with no issues. Additional comments and queries raised by exception – none.
5	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey and Sussed: No Breaches had been reported in the quarter for Surrey or Sussex.
6	Work Plan: A proposed joint Surrey/Sussex work plan had been created and shared with the Board shortly before the meeting, the Board were advised that this was still a work in progress and would be updated to include any observations they had in time for the next Board meeting. GB raised a query in relation to the Evans & Ashcroft case, (how to treat the over deduction of Incapacity Benefit (IB) and Industrial Injury Disablement Benefit (IIDB)) and what the current status of the project was, the Pensions Team agreed to investigate the current situation and update the work plan.
Item	Notes		Actions / Owner
6 cont.	Action JB 2020-02: Update work plan to put more Clarity in around this.		CG/DS
	GB also asked what advice was being given to eligible scheme members as to where they should refer any claims. It was confirmed scheme members should contact Equinity directly but KE confirmed that if they applied to Surrey or Sussex Police it would still be dealt with.
7	Risk and Issue Register: The registers for both Boards were reviewed. Members from both Boards had recently received training on this subject and thanked DS & KE for organising and KW for delivering this informative session which all Members had found useful. The Board acknowledged that Surrey and Sussex currently recorded their risks differently and the plan was to have a joint register for the next meeting. It was acknowledged that this was a good time to have a reset, set out a framework and consider the contents of the Risk Register. The Board also agreed that they did not own the risks but needed to have an overview to enable them to seek assurance from the Officers attending from those organisations that the risks were being monitored and actions were being taken to mitigate the risks. Currently Surrey’s risk register is a public document and Sussex’s not and the question was asked if it should be a public document? The Board felt it was better to be open and transparent and that any sensitive issues could be discussed in the part 2 (private) part of the meeting if necessary. It was agreed that more work would be done on this document by the Implementation Board.
8	Pension Board Training: The training logs for both Surrey and Sussex were reviewed. It was confirmed that the Risk assessment training had been added to both logs, LB did not need to complete the Pensions Regulator’s online training, DE had completed his and NM had completed part and would complete the rest before the next meeting. In the future the logs would be amalgamated into one document for the purposes of the Joint Board.
9	Scheme Advisory Board Quarterly Update: The last letter form Scheme Advisory Board had been received on the 4th of February so was now a little out of date, no information on who was going to be the new SAB chair had yet been received. It was acknowledge that the letters from the SAB Chair do not always arrive in time for the Surrey quarterly meetings, dates of future meetings are to be considered by the Implementation Board.
10	Pensions Remedy: DS confirmed that the NPCC Pension Remedy working group have working on resolving issues. The NPCC and LGA are working with the Home Office and Treasury to get the retrospective and prospective legislation in place. There is a tight timeline for this of March 2022. There is to be a £7m fund available to distribute to those in immediate detriment and discussions were ongoing on how and where this should be applied, should this be mandatory or for schemes to engage. As there was yet no legislation it makes it hard to understand how this will work. There were risks re the timeline / data risks / process risks etc. and the admin around all of this would also be a risk as it will be very complex to administer.		GB/DS
Item	Notes		Actions / Owner
10 Cont.	The Pensions Remedy Stakeholder Engagement Forum would test and engage with the communications strategy, this would be an interactive forum and invites were to be sent out soon. GB informed the Board that the NARPO CEO had recently written to the Treasury regarding the Pension Remedy solution in which he pointed out that the process for implementing the agreed Remedy Solution would result in discriminatory delays for the eligible pensioners. DS confirmed that it had not yet been mentioned in any detail but that she would be happy to take this forward at the next meeting.
	Action JB 2021-03: GB to forward information to DS. DS to raise at the next Pension Remedy Stakeholder Group meeting		GB/DS
11	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update: The Board acknowledged that the current reports were not quite what the Board required, it was confirmed that the trend in Surrey was known to be on the decline but there was no data in the Surrey report to back this up. The Board agreed a consistent approach across both organisations was needed and a rep from Occupational Health should attend the Board as context to the reports are useful. DS confirmed this formed part of an ongoing dialog, with Occupational Health and she had been given to understand that it was easier to pull out information from one side but not the other. What is required in this report will be considered in more detail by the Implementation Board.
12	Review of Pension Board Privacy Statement: The Privacy Statement for Surrey Police Pensions had been due for a review, it was confirmed that was updated as a document bi annually but reviewed by the Board annually in line with TPR guidance. The Board noted the statement and no changes were required at this time. This document will be considered as part of the Implementation Boards programme of work.
13	Review of Internal Dispute Resolution Policy & Procedure: The Surrey IDRP had been due for a review, it was confirmed that was updated as a document bi annually but reviewed by the Board annually in line with TPR guidance. The Board noted the policy and no changes were required. It was confirmed that Sussex’s policy had not been review by the Sussex Board but was exactly the same with just the contact details being different. This document will be considered as part of the Implementation Boards programme of work
14	Consideration and Discussion of Actions in advance of the next meeting: Annual Report – it was agreed that both Surrey and Sussex Pension Boards would need to submit their own reports to the SAB Chair for this past year but that the next years report would be a joint report.
15	Any Other Business: None. The Board again thanked SP for his contribution to the Board.

Item	Notes	Actions / Owner
16	Date of next meeting: There was already a meeting date set in the calendar for the Surrey side which is 22nd of July at 10am and the Implementation Board will consider if this meeting can go ahead as a Joint meeting or if a new date needs to be selected, the Implementation Board will set the future dates for the Board at the so that these dates can be published in advance
17	Exclusion Notice: The Exclusion Notice was read out by the Chair and the public part of the meeting closed at 11.50am.
	Part Two (In Private)
18	AOB: The Board were given more details in relation to an issue they had been made aware of at the last Board meeting for which legal advice was being sought. A discussion was held around bringing the date for the process to be brought forward although the Board acknowledged the timeframe was already tight, it was confirmed the hard stop date for this was January 2022 and a paper on this would be brought to the next Board. PG left the meeting at this point, 12.30pm. The Board were also made aware of another issue in relation to the Scheme Administration, and with this, the Pension Remedy, and the above issue it was a perfect storm and more resources were urgently required within the Surrey/Sussex Police Pension Team, a recruitment process was underway with the advert due to go out soon There was no other business.

The Chair thanked everyone for their attendance at the meeting, the meeting closed at 12.38pm.

Future meetings are planned for:

To be confirmed.

Department/ Division: SBS
Name: Sussex Police Pensions Board
Location of meeting: Malling House Room 1
Date: 6th February 2020
Time: 10:00-12:00

Chair Iain McCulloch IM Chair
Board Members: Pete Gillett PG Employer Representative – Director of finance
Matt Webb MW Employee Representative – Federation
Graham Bradley GB Employee Representative – NARPO
C/Supt Lisa Bell LB Employee Representative - Superintendents Association
Daisanne Summersfield DS Employer Representative – Head of SBS
Board Advisors: Jo Langley JL Finance Lead
Kelly Ellison KE Pensions Officer
Ben Read BR Equiniti
John Kakatsos JK Equiniti
James Casey JC Equiniti

Kevin Courtney KC NPCC Pension Advisor

Minutes: Annalise King AK Secretary

Apologies: ACC Dave Miller DM Employer Representative - Assistant Chief Constable

1 Introduction and Apologies

• Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate
• Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests
• Conflicts of Interest IM

2 Minutes / Actions from Previous Meeting

• To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings
• Progress on actions log IM

3 Member Web Portal Demonstration (Equiniti Presentation)

Equiniti gave a demonstration of how the web portal will work and what it will look like. JK/JC

A Pension Administrator Update (BR)

• Quarterly update to the Board
• Current progress with the Improvement Plan.

Firstly, there is a new Team leader, who is the first point of contact for any queries; her contact details can be found on the report.

Equiniti received 1,600 items during this period. It was noted that the SLA % on page 6 was low at 88.83% and shows all transactions that were missed. BR went over the improvement plan and advised all work is now being completed within target. MW questioned the cases that have missed SLA found on page 8-16; BR has assured that these have now all been completed.

Phone calls in to the help desk are at a high number and a break down can be found on page 17-19 of what the calls are made up from. The 253 not listed in the key relate to Annual Benefit Statements. BR to revise this on the report.

Complaints during the period have been listed, the majority relating to benefit statements and issues around that. JL informed the board that a report has been sent to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) regarding the data breach however we haven’t had anything back or any comments back to date.

LB asked if she can share this document wider than this meeting; BR informed the Board that a redacted version of this document can be shared to put on the website. Put in communications around this paper that figures have been improved and that all issues have now been resolved and this is noted in previous minutes.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 2 BR Produce a redacted version of the Q3 Quarterly report removing the team telephone numbers for public viewing.

Membership movement on pages 22 & 23 activity shown and last page gives details of officers who have opted out/career break/retirement etc. Additional officers coming in so will see this number increasing.

IM has some concerns on why officers have opted out and what follow up takes place around this. DS informed they will explore options but the employer cannot be seen to influence an individual’s decision.
DS advised we are drafting a one page document for Op Uplift and will explore what else we can do to inform new recruits. MW believes that this is down to the individual’s affordability.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 3 DS to take this away and find out the follow up around officers opting out.

MW suggested that we dedicate a certain team to talk to individuals with regards to financial advice about opting out of the pension scheme. There is a website available called Unbiased.co.uk which provides details of financial advisors which we can direct officers to if requested. BR

DS/JL - To take this away and look at providing information about the pension plan so they can make an informed decision

Additionally, auto re-enrolment takes place this year and all officers who have previously opted out will be re-enrolled.

5 Legacy Complaints and compensation – an agreed way to gather facts to specific issues

MW informed us that this is about dealing with potential legacy complaints. It was unclear what was meant by the term legacy and DS wanted some examples so we could put a plan in place.

LB advised that she has had conversations with members around the HMRC Scheme Pays fines from 2016/17 and officers are now understanding what Equiniti’s role is in this. What officers would like to know is who will be accountable for these errors?

BR informed the Board that Equiniti would provide administration support for any issues relating to this but would not take liability for the previous administrator’s errors. We have Scheme Pays plans submitted but this is yet to be actioned. Scheme Pays payment that have not been made are being issued with HMRC fines from possibly the previous provider’s actions.

We would need to gather the details on a case by case. Suggested Officers send any documentation relating to their specific issue to KE so it can be collated. In addition, a meeting will be arranged with the Chief Constable so that the issues can be clarified and understood. Sussex Police requires the facts and evidence to capture this and find a way forward.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 4 DS to set this up with KE & JL to start collating information to look into this further.

PG has recommended that we consider sending a letter to HMRC to explain the background and clarifying the context re the pension transfer.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 5 PG/DS To follow up with Ben Read after meeting with the Chief Constable and others.

Finally, it was reminded that any complaints should go through the internal disputes resolution process (IDRP); if officers are still unsatisfied then they can go to the Pension Ombudsman. MW

6 Pension Remedy / McCloud Update

KC informed that the NPCC are working with the Home and the legal process is still ongoing. Sides have put forward final resolution and this is still being discussed. The legal process still ongoing for the claimants. There are approximately 1,300 claimants nationally.
Tactical discussion with each scheme advisory board are underway and it is expected that there will be a three month of consultation commencing April/May then legislated changes will have to be made. Any messages that go out around this need to state that remedy is not KC / DS

the resolution. There is a National Pensions Remedy Group set up and meeting monthly to inform, capture and share information surrounding this complex issue.

DS informed the Board that the Sussex & Surrey Remedy Working Group has been set up and a project board is in place. We have linked in with Corporate Communications to get a dedicated page on the website for this issue. We will also need to increase resourcing to cope with the massive demands and work activities relating to this issue.

7 Review of Reported Breaches

• Review any breaches during the quarter
• Annual Benefit Statements
• Reporting Breaches Procedures Nothing to report JL

8 Work Plan

• Monitoring of the work plan

We are busy working on this. Board papers are being published on the website. Under FOIs.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 6 BR to look at providing historical pension increase percentages on the portal.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 7 DS/JL to look into the content for sending the newsletter out in April. Ensure GB has sight of this before it is sent. JL

9 Risk Register

• To review and update the Pension Board risk register

Need to show were risk sits. Keep Data accuracy at 12 as we need time to assess the issue. JL would like to perform data checks before Go Live for the Web Portal. As part of the communications we will ask members to also check their details.

Monthly interface report from payroll into Equiniti states it is sent Monthly, however this normally falls quarterly due to current system issues so this needs to be updated on the risk register.

Potential loss of digital data of deferred records; this needs to be rethought through and reworded to physical data.

Cyber risks paper to be reference in the risk registry report and score adjusted if deemed appropriate.

Member portal to be changed to amber.

Latest date on document needs to be updated. JL

• Cyber risks register- Report has been set up and will be updated yearly.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 8 KE/JL to update point 9 on the Cyber Risks paper to include ‘and Pension Board’ after scheme manager.

IM gave his thanks to KE & JL on their hard work and effort put into this paper.

10 Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update / Injury Award Reviews

No paper on this as LM was not able to attend She has informed us that she will try to make it to the next meeting.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 9 PG to send LM an email about attending the next meeting and bringing the paper. DS

11 Board Member Training

All online training is up to date. LB needs to be added to this.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 10 KE Write to LB to ask whether she will be a standing member of the board and ask her to complete the pension board training.

- Cyber Risk Training in conjunction with Surrey Board (11th November 2020) IM

12 Consideration and Discussion of Actions in advance of the next meeting

Nothing to raise at this stage. IM

13 AOB

Web Portal – Member self-service project board is being set up with initial meetings to start looking at the layout etc with the Surrey & Sussex Police communications lead for the project. Following this, the project board will be opened to representatives from both boards and key users. It is to be noted that the more customisation that is done, may cause delays however the aim is to deliver the portal as soon as possible.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 11 DS to provide a paper for Board overview.

Action PPB/005/2020 – 12 BR to do some investigation around the NARPO deduction issues and will update on what has happened with GB. All

Date / Location of next meeting: Thursday 30 April 2020: Malling House Meeting Room 2

Minutes

Department/ Division: SBS
Name: Pensions Board
Location of meeting: MR – HQ – Amberley Block Meeting Room 1 (First Floor)
Date: Thursday 7 November 2019
Time: 10:00 – 12:00

Iain McCulloch IMc Chair
Matt Webb MW Member Representative - Federation
Pete Gillett PG Employer Representative - Director of Finance
ACC Dave Miller DM Employer Representative - Assistant Chief Constable
Graham Bradley GB Member Representative - North Sussex NARPO
Daisanne Summersfield DS Employer Representative - Head of SBS
Board Advisors
Jo Langley JL Finance Technical Lead
Ben Read BR Equiniti
John Kankatsos JK Equiniti
Julia Wyatt JW Equiniti
Laura Pertile LP Equiniti
Kelly Ellison KE Pensions Officer
Annalise King AK Secretary
Holly Cobby HC Secretary

Apologies: D/Supt Carwyn Hughes CH Member Representative - Superintendents Association

1 Introduction and Apologies

• Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate
• Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests
• Conflicts of Interest - None IMc

2 Annual Review of the Terms of Reference

The current Terms of reference (TOR) were included on the agenda for discussion.

MW brought up the fact that some people out there have a separate business for income. This is taking them over their lifetime allowance. Suggested that we put something in the TOR to increases knowledge around this issue. As a force we need to consider a wider knowledge and understand on this and provide relevant advice. This has already been looked at and we have held a number of sessions around raising awareness. This should be included in section 5 of the TOR.

Election of members – As approved by the Chief Constable

On the 21st August 2019 IMc met with CC Giles York to present an annual report of the agreed work plan. IM was appointed Chair again and PG was appointed as the Deputy Chair, which is the first time that a deputy has been appointed. MW was reappointed as his term had lapsed. The Board welcomed ACC Dave Miller as an Employer Representative. The Chief sent thanks to the Board for all their work. IMc

3 Minutes / Actions from Previous Meeting

The minutes of the last Pension Board were agreed.

In the future, it was agreed that the draft minutes would be sent around shortly after the board meeting so any changes can be made

Progress on actions log recorded. IMc

4 Pension Administrator Update Quarterly update to the Board

The team have appointed a new team leader, she will be responsible for looking after Surrey and Sussex.

Data Breach

The 2019 benefit statements went out on the 30th August. It then came to light that there was an issue around some of the addresses that were on the system which resulted in a number of statements being sent to an incorrect address. This resulted in a data breach and a Gold command team was set up to deal with correcting this. (Further details of the breach can be found in Section 5 Breaches.)

DM informed the Board that a number of officers still hadn’t had their annual benefit statement, including himself, and would like to know what is being done to resolve this issue.

Equiniti are liaising with JL and team for a list of any officers who hadn’t received their benefit statement. JL has passed these details on and the statements have been sent out. Equiniti are sending out statements as and when enquiries are received. BR

Action PPB/004/2019 – 1: LP/BR To go through the list of officers still awaiting their statements and come back to JL in 5 working days with the list and how this is being dealt with.

Other matters were raised by Board members at this point that they have received poor responses through the helpdesk, there have been P60 issues, the data breach, slow to process retirements, and also the customer service when making a complaint needs to be looked at. All these issues need to be reflected on.

MW raised a case which had some significant issues and it concerns him that there are still ongoing issues.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 2: MW To send information on this case to BR in an email so that Equiniti are able to look into this and report back

LP informed the Board that there has been a base team built in Crawley. Listening to the feedback from this meeting, she is aware that Equiniti, as a company, have a knowledge issue. They have assured the Board that they are capable of putting this right.

JK explained that the next step is to come back to the Board with what Equiniti are going to do to correct the issues that have been raised, together with a timeframe as Equiniti will need to do investigations around all these issues. The priority for the board is to look at all the annual benefit statements and Pensions savings statements then to work through other issues. Equiniti will collate a paper to share with the board.

IMc has suggested that, given the issues, an extra ordinary Pension Board meeting with Equiniti needs to be scheduled to come up with a resolution.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 3: DS to set up an additional meeting with Equiniti to discuss current issues and how they are to be resolved

Apologies from Equiniti have been given for all the issues that have occurred recently.

Member Web Portal Update

With regards to the member web portal we have been working internally on further updates. The next step is awaiting sign off; this is currently sitting with the InfoSec teams at Surrey and Sussex Police. Equiniti and JL are setting up a meeting to include Info Sec and ensuring the right people are in that meeting.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 4: JL to secure an attendee from InfoSec at the Sign Off meeting next week

Step one is to finish the build, step two is to upgrade the system that the force is currently on. From that point they can then launch the portal. Equiniti expect to launch the self-service by June 2020. This is a priority and the force are currently at the top of the IT list.

DS has asked that we have the assurance that the web portal is being done as this has been the key driver to why the forces are in contract with Equiniti.

IMc has expressed his disappointment that the system is still not ready to be deployed despite the concerns that have been consistently raised by Sussex and that had the system been deployed we would not have suffered the ABS data breach issue.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 5: JK / EQ to set up a project plan and have the key stakeholders working together to create a fully detailed project plan.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 6: JL/DS to have a weekly catch ups with the team and Equiniti for progression.
5 Review of Reported Breaches

BR gave a brief summary on what happened during August 2019 data breach. This list was updated with the correct addresses, however there were 746 statements sent out to previous addresses. This was picked up 3 weeks later. This data breach came to light due to the higher number of queries coming in and forwarded letters from a previous address. There were also a lot returned to Equiniti.

Full check of everyone at the point of the breach had been made and Equiniti raised the breach to JL, where JL was able to liaise internally with the data breach officer in Sussex. Equiniti have since updated the pensions system and there are now no old addresses held on the system.

During this data breach a Gold command group was set up straight away. The report has been sent to ICO and this has come back with no further action required and no fine has been issued by them.

Equiniti have had around 10 responses in the way of complaints.

The breach was also raised with The Pensions Regulator (TPR). There has not been any feedback from TPR as yet.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 7: JL To share the ICO response and the TPO response with the Board to confirm the responses received and to update the risk register if applicable for any outcomes. BR

6 Work Plan

Monitoring of the work plan

There is a proposal to have a joint pension board with Surrey. JL is planning to set up a workshop to scope the look and feel of the Board JL will try to get this done before Christmas, with the plan for the merge to go ahead in April 2020. (See Section 8 below)

Temporary salary - MW and DS have both taken legal advice around this. Based on the legal advice given, the letters are scheduled to be sent out the week of 18th November. This issue has affected approximately 300 officers.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 8: DS To send latest briefing note around to all

Action PPB/004/2019 – 9: DS To send draft temporary salary letter to MW to review and possibly add additional paragraph. JL

7 Risk Register

To review and update the Pension Board risk register.

Revised risk register has been completed. Need to look at the Cyber security area which is currently marked as a Risk 4. A full risk assessment needs to be completed on this. We also need to have assurance around Equiniti’s cyber security. IMc

8 Surrey/Sussex Joint Pension Board Proposal

Look to align the tender process as well as the joining of both pension boards. Ian Perkin is leaving Surrey and would like the Board to consider the joining of both pensions’ boards before he leaves in April 2020. GB is not 100% sure the Sussex board is functioning perfectly yet. The Board think that there could be benefits to merge both pension boards together but would like to see both boards functioning well before merging as one. DS/JL will set up a working group to explore the options relating to combining Sussex and Surrey Pension Boards in the future.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 10: DS/JL to get a working group together to work through the governance and structure to combine the two Pension Boards DS/JL

9 Cyber Security Arrangements – Review and risk assessment

NPCC are raising this as a top issue. Review what we have in place and how we transfer data. We need to understand Equiniti’s process as well as our own.

Action PPB/004/2019 – 11: JL/KE to work through the NPCC paper and commence a full risk assessment JL/KE

Date / Location of next meeting: Thursday 6th February 2020 at 10:00-12:00 in Malling House Room 1

Minutes

Name:	Pensions Pensions Board
Location of meeting:	MR – HQ – Malling House Meeting Room 1 (First Floor)
Date:	Thursday 8 August 2019
Time:	10:00 – 12:00

Attendee	Role	Attendance
Board Members
Iain McCulloch (IMc)	Chair - Chief Finance Officer, PCC	Present
Matt Webb (MW)	Member Representative - Police Federation (Deputy Chair)	Present
Daisanne Summersfield (DS)	Employer Representative - Head of Shared Business Services	Present
Graham Bradley (GB)	Member Representative - North Sussex NARPO	Present
Peter Gillett (PG)	Employer Representative – Exec Director Finance Commercial Services	Apologies
D/Supt Carwyn Hughes (CH)	Member Representative - Superintendents Association	Present
Board Advisers
Ben Read (BR)	Equiniti - Service Manager	Present
Joanna Langley (JL)	Surrey Police – Finance Technical Lead	Present
Kelly Ellison (KE)	Sussex Police – Pensions Officer	Present
Marcus Potter (MP)	Information Management	Present
Louise Monk (LM)	Occupational Health	Apologies
Minutes	Holly Muggeridge	Present

Welcome (Chair)

Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate
Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests
Conflicts of Interest

No conflicts of interest were declared.

PART 1

Minutes / Actions from Previous Meeting (Chair)

The previous minutes and actions were agreed as an accurate record.

IMc to share the bullet points of the Police Pension Board event and advice following the meeting.

GB highlighted that some of the actions in the minutes did not appear in the action log; this will be corrected. It was noted that GB was passionate about matters during the last meeting which did not come through in the minutes. Following on for the last meeting there is an update regarding the recruitment letters; these have been sent out by NARPO resulting in 67 new members which is positive.

Action 002/2017 – 1 – this action relates to online papers being made available electronically. The papers and agenda for this meeting are all available electronically and all public facing papers are reviewed and redacted. GB, BR and IMc cannot access the papers as they are all external. DS will follow this up with JL to ensure that papers can be available. This action will be moved onto the work plan under the current project section and will be removed from the action log.

Action 7 (9/5/18) Joint Pension Board - DS will meet with KC to gather information on how to progress. BR attends Surrey Pension Board as well. This is to be moved to the work plan as an ongoing project.

PPB 002/2018 – 5 Temporary Salary- There is a lot of ongoing work being done; this is something that MW has highlighted for years. The project team are in place and have done manual calculations. The letter has been drafted and is now with legal for oversight; this will then be sent to MW. When the letter has been completed it will be shared with the board for information purposes and, as long as senior stakeholders are in agreement, the letter will be sent out in early September. The letter will detail the amount that each of them owes and how much we take back; the payments will be as flexible as possible. If this causes any financial hardship then it will be dealt with as there are mechanisms of how to pay.

GB asked that he be kept updated with the progress as this affects retired officers. GB asked whether it would be useful to have a scheme manager’s recommendation; this is something that IMc would like to do.

IMc would like to know the total value of the contributions and a breakdown of whose pension it will and will not affect; there may be retired individuals who are on the correct pension but need to make a contribution.

JL has this information and will collate by Tuesday 20th August 2019. A telephone conference is to be arranged with JG, DS, IMc and MW to discuss.

This item to be taken off the actions and added to the Work Plan.

PPB/002/2018 – 6 McCloud Case - JL said that there was an update that came out at the end of July and she looked at the comms that came out around that on the audit but there is no update currently. The Home Office and Government are looking at what this now means and how to make that right. IMc said that actuaries revalued the pension scheme and it is important to identify who has been impacted.

IMc asked what the best way would be to communicate with retired officers who are implicated. BR said that the population of retired officers would be very small as those affected transitioned into the 2015 scheme and are likely to still be active officers. The others affected would be ill health pensioners but the number of this would be very small due to the period of retiring from the 2015 scheme.

This item to be taken off the actions – on the Work Plan.

PPB/003/2018 – 5 Member Web Services - At the end of May 2019 DS and BR met with designers and InfoSec from Surrey and Sussex where they presented a high level document giving the structure that Equiniti proposed to build; this has been agreed in principle. There have been security questionnaires from Surrey and Sussex InfoSec as well as compliance questionnaires and risk assessments to ensure that there is the right risk assessment.

A low level design document is now being worked on and should be available by the end of August. Following this, Equiniti would be in a position to provide a timeline of delivery. When the compliance questionnaires and risk assessments are back from InfoSec, Equiniti will be ready to start the build.

GB asked that he and MW are kept updated with this work. DS said that when it comes to branding and designing of the product she would like to engage all those who may be interested. BR advised that Equiniti would give a workshop approach with a demo to give users the opportunity to decide what goes into the design; a branding exercise can be performed when the system is live on the screen. It would be beneficial to have involvement from those on the operational side.

Item to be taken off the actions – on the Work Plan

PPB/001/2019 – 1 Abandoned Calls – BR explained that one part of the action as to give the board information on the category of abandoned calls; this is difficult to know as the calls were not answered. DS asked whether this relates to the busy volume areas such as annual benefit statements; BR advised that as we are still in the first year of the Sussex contract, he has not been in the position to identify trends across Equiniti. The number of calls up 30- 40% up on what is expected and there is a lot of general interest around pensions. The number of calls peak when P60’s and pay slips come out.

PPB/001/2019 – 2 – Scheme Movement Data – The board agreed that the movement data has been really well presented. BR provides 2 versions of the report; one being sent to JL, DS and KE including members data, and another for the pension board removing any member data; due to GDPR members names and personal data are not included.

MW said that his focus was around the missed SLA matters but this has since been clarified and is 100%; some were missed but this was only by a couple of days.

PPB/002/2019 – 6 – Publishing Pension Scheme Information - There were a number of concerns from GB; an action came from this for PG to raise the compliance issue with JL as since the Single Online Home was introduced, the Board Papers are no longer available.

This is due to migration issues. Both forces are breaching what we should be doing. GB felt that the focus of the website has changed from an informational tool to an operational tool.

2. Pension Administrator Update (BR)

Member Web Services
Scheme Movement Data
Abandoned calls
Scheme Breakdown
Pension Payment Advice Slips

During the period there were 1270 transactions which was an increase on the previous quarter. Overall there have been a drop in calls over the quarter but the help desks in general have been busy. The team has strengthened over time. There were some missed SLA’s; one due to divorce and a police transfer out.

It was mentioned that nothing has been recorded on the report around annual benefit statements; BR advised that these are currently being worked through at the moment and are due to be out at the end of August. KE sent through an up to date address list for all officers to Equiniti.

GB noted that there are two categories missing on the key on page 9 (Call Types); 21% (orange) should be P60’s and 4% (light blue) is benefit statements; BR is to amend this and add volumes as well as percentages.

Action- BR to amend the admin report to show missing categories as well as volumes and percentages.

There have been no complaints or compliments recorded during the period; anything raised will have been answered and therefore has not turned into a complaint. GB raised concerns on two key areas around widow pensions and incidences where widows are being ‘harassed’ for overpayments at a really poor time. BR advised that where a pension payment is made before Equiniti have been notified of the member’s death, this can result in a mismatch of payments. Equiniti are looking into this matter and there is a process in place to improve how they request any overpayments. It was reminded that Equiniti should be notified immediately in the event of a pensioner’s death so that they can stop any future payments and minimise any overpayments.

GB raised an issue regarding 300 P60’s for pensioners that were not sent out; this was initially raised with the Hastings NARPO branch. BR explained that the pension system can hold multiple addresses but only one active address can be listed; the information received from Capita showed the current addresses and previous addresses and therefore no P60’s were generated. MW queried whether these matters are listed as complaints. GB explained that the report goes until the end of June and the matters did not come to light until July; they will likely appear on the next report.

IMc asked what DS’s view is on the performance of Equiniti; DS goes over individual cases if something comes up. She is confident that everything is being dealt with and everyone knows the routes in if they need to. IMc said that it is important to strategically think about the 20k new officers and recruitment plans; we currently do not know the funding or numbers for this.

3. Annual Report 2018/19 – Drafting & Content (Chair)

This is outstanding and will be completed within the next few weeks. IMc is attending a meeting on 21st August 2019 with Chief Constable Giles York and would like any board member to attend also. The information for this will be circulated outside of this meeting. IMc would welcome an offline chat with Board members to ensure all are happy with the Annual Report to be presented.

4. Annual Review of the Terms of Reference

This will be discussed at the next board meeting. MW’s TOR membership has expired but the board wish to nominate him again if he is happy to be a part of the board; this can only be for a year and then MW’s successor will need to be nominated.

PART 2

GDPR / Data Protection Legislation Update (MP)

Presentation on GDPR/ Data Protection Legislation given by MP, Head of Information Management. Presentation was distributed with the papers for this meeting.

2. Scheme Advisory Board – Bulletin July 2019

McCloud case
The Pensions Regulator Annual Governance and Administration Survey Results / Key Issues: Cyber Risks
Evans & Ashcroft v South Wales Constabulary

Nothing to raise. MW had recent announcements around NHS pensions and allowances; MW to send the links that cover this to everyone as an update.

3. Board Member Training (Chair)

Update

Training Schedule to be kept up to date; MW has provided his to KE. There is another Fire Training Course on 12th November 2019 around Pensions and Tax issues.

4. Work Plan (JL)

Monitoring of the work plan

IMc said that the new work plan is brilliant as JL has picked up on the comments from the recent Government Scheme event.

GB questioned where we are currently with the GMP reconciliation. BR said the GMP consultant met with Capita for the handover and since that meeting there has been no progress. Capita are progressing with Phase 2 ready for Equiniti to do the reification of the scheme for Sussex. JL to chase Capita for an update on current progress.

Action- DS to escalate with Capita for an update.

Cyber risks is be added as an ongoing project. There is a TPR survey response to demonstrate that we have reviewed it and will inform the risk register; this has been done and DS will report back at the next board.

MW said there is a pension increase for people aged 55 or over or those under Ill Health Retirement with an uplift every year and asked whether anything has been given to the under 55’s to explain the uplift that will occur on their 55th birthday.

GB said that there used to be a letter notifying those of the increase along with GMP information meaning that the individuals would be able to calculate their state pension and what their pension would likely be at 55. GB to send through the letter about increases to pensions to JL who can incorporate this into the newsletter.

Action- GB to send through the pension increase letters to JL.

DS advised that over the next two months Sussex and Surrey Police are holding pensions tax awareness sessions for individuals in association with Barnett Waddingham and dates are currently being secured. JL has scoped who fell into the category, as well as LGPS groups, and also lower ranking officers with second business interests; vetting should be able to have an idea of who this would cover.

Sussex and Surrey Police also plan to hold some annual benefit statement drop in session at 3 locations in Brighton, Crawley and Eastbourne. MW said that he is looking at pension seminars and can ask attendees to bring in their annual benefit statements. CH said that a representative from the board can come along to the Superintendents Association to have the biggest cohort in the force.

5. Risk Register (JL)

To review and update the Pension Board risk register

Cyber risks have been added onto the risk register and there is more work to be done around this. The red risks are around data being complete and accurate; the data scoring project with Equiniti is ongoing and so is the interface report out of the payroll system. The current payroll interface is not working how it should; the data needs to be extracted out of the payroll system SAP which is not easy to do. The new payroll system and Equip will hopefully be live in February 2020. DS said that the member web services should be showing as red and not green.

GB felt that the descriptions of risk should be more than one liners because it is unclear what the risk actually is. Some of the items listed are risks but some are control measures. There needs to be some improvements made to the risk register but it is far easier to read than before. IMc said that anything on the risk register showing as red should be reported to the strategic risk register. GB queried the role of the risk register because there is an organisational risk or whether this is solely for the pension board. IMc explained that the purpose of the risk register is to review the risks and demonstrate what we are doing as a pension board.

Action - GB to send his thoughts on the risk register to JL to update for the next board meeting

Breaches Log (JL)

Review any breaches during the quarter

Nothing to add on there and there are no new breaches to report. Some of the breaches are 3 years old and should be kept on for the year of reporting but if they are dealt with they can archived after the year.

7. Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update / Injury Award Reviews

LM was unable to make this meeting but she will be attending the next board meeting to explain the Ill Health Retirement Process.

Agendas

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:	Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)
Location of meeting:	Via Microsoft Teams

Date:	Wednesday 23/11/2022
Time:	14:00 – 16.00

Meeting Chair:

Kelvin Menon

CFO

Office of the Surrey PCC

Attendees:

Name

Initials

Role

Iain McCulloch

CFO, Office of the Sussex PCC

Vacant

Executive Director Commercial & Financial Services

Daisanne Summersfield

Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford

Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police

Carwyn Hughes

Head of Digital, Data & Technology Department Surrey & Sussex Police

Tom Budd

Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Miles Ockwell

Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Danielle Mead

Federation, Surrey Police

Donna Lonsdale

Federation, Sussex Police

Simon Lambert

NARPO, Surrey

Graham Bradley

NARPO, Sussex

Scheme Manager

Gavin Stephens

Chief Constable, Surrey Police

Scheme Manager

Jo Shiner

Chief Constable, Sussex Police

Board Advisors:

Cassidy Gillett

Pensions Lead, Surrey

Michelle Quirke

Pensions Officer

Shelia Love

Pensions Lead for Surrey & Sussex Police, Engagement, Projects & Relationship Management

Isobel Tait

Pensions Project Support Officer

XLS

Minutes:

Rachel Lupanko

Office Manager, OPCC Surrey

Guests

Apologies:

Danielle Mead, Gavin Stephens

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Minutes / Actions from Previous Meetings (15 minutes) · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions logs for Sussex and Joint Board	Paper Paper	Chair
3	Risk Register (10 minutes) · Review of Risk Register	To Follow	Chair
4	Pension Administrator Summary (15 minutes) · Quarterly Reports (Equinity) Qtr 2 · Update report (XPS) · Additional comments and queries raised by exception	Paper Verbal Verbal	Chair NB All
5	Pension Remedy (10 minutes) · Pension Remedy National Update · Surrey/Sussex Update	Verbal Verbal	DS DS
6	Report on Scheme Membership opt out rates (5 minutes) · Surrey	To Follow	CG
7	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5 minutes)	Verbal	CG
8	Surrey/Sussex Work Plan / Timeline (5 minutes) · Review of upcoming quarter	To Follow	CG
9	Pension Board Training Log	Paper	Chair
10	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All
11	Date of next meeting – 21/02/2023	Verbal	Chair
12	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
13	Minutes & Actions Part 2 (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
14	Pension Administration Transfer Update (5 minutes)	Verbal	DS
15	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

24/05/2023

06/09/2023

30/11/2023

07/03/2024

Agenda

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:	Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)
Location of meeting:	Via Microsoft Teams

Date:	Wednesday 25 August 2022
Time:	10:30 – 12:30

Meeting Chair:

Kelvin Menon

CFO

Office of the Surrey PCC

Attendees:

Name

Initials

Role

Board Members:

Kelvin Menon

CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC

Iain McCulloch

CFO, Office of the Sussex PCC

Vacant

Executive Director Commercial & Financial Services

Daisanne Summersfield

Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police

Adrian Rutherford

Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police

Carwyn Hughes

Head of Digital, Data & Technology Department Surrey & Sussex Police

Tom Budd

Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Miles Ockwell

Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police

Danielle Mead

Federation, Surrey Police

Donna Lonsdale

Federation, Sussex Police

Tony Suter

NARPO, Surrey

Graham Bradley

NARPO, Sussex

Scheme Manager

Gavin Stephens

Chief Constable, Surrey Police

Scheme Manager

Jo Shiner

Chief Constable, Sussex Police

Board Advisors:

Cassidy Gillett

Pensions Lead, Surrey

Michelle Quirke

Pensions Officer

Shelia Love

Pensions Lead for Surrey & Sussex Police, Engagement, Projects & Relationship Management

Isobel Tait

Pensions Project Support Officer

Adam Holt

Equiniti

Minutes:

Rachel Lupanko

Office Manager, OPCC Surrey

Guests

Apologies:

Danielle Mead, Gavin Stephens, Adrian Rutherford, Anthony Croxford

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Minutes / Actions from Previous Meetings (10 minutes) · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions logs for Sussex and Joint Board	Paper Paper	Chair
3	Risk Register (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
4	Pension Administrator Summary (15 minutes) · Quarterly update to the Board Qtr 2 2022/2023 · Additional comments and queries raised by exception	To follow Verbal	AH
5	Pension Remedy (15 minutes) · Pension Remedy National Update · Surrey/Sussex Update	Verbal Verbal	DS
7	Report on Scheme Membership opt out rates (5 minutes) · Surrey	To follow	CG
8	Pension Board Terms of Reference, Policies and Procedures (5 minutes) a) Terms of Reference b) Conflict of Interest Policy & Procedure c) Knowledge & Understanding d) DP, GDPR & Information Security Policy & Procedure e) Code of Conduct f) Reporting Breaches Procedure g) Finance Policy - Budget, Fees and Expenses	Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper	Chair Chair Chair Chair Chair Chair SL
9	Discretions Policy (5 minutes)	Verbal	CG
10	Surrey/Sussex Work Plan / Timeline (5 minutes)	Paper	CG
11	Annual Report (5 minutes)	Paper	IM
12	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5 minutes)	Verbal	CG
13	Pension Board Training Log (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
14	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All
15	Date of next meeting – 23/11/2023	Verbal	Chair
16	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
17	Minutes & Actions Part 2 (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
18	Pension Administration Transfer Project Plan & Update (15 minutes)	Verbal	DS
19	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

21/02/2023 24/05/2023 06/09/2023

30/11/2023 07/03/2024

Exclusion of press and public

The Scheme Manager, the Chief Constable or Officer of a local police force in England and Wales, is a public authority for the purposes of Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (see paragraph 59).

The Surrey and Sussex Police Pensions Board assists the Scheme Manager in his / her governance and administration of the Police Pension Scheme. Accordingly, the principles and requirements under the Act apply, and documents produced by the Board will be separated appropriately (at the Chair of the Board’s discretion), into open (Part 1) and closed (Part 2) business.

RECOMMENDATION: That, under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information under the relevant paragraphs of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

Paragraph 3 - Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

Name:	Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)
Location of meeting:	Via Microsoft Teams

Date:	Wednesday 25^th May 2022
Time:	14:00 – 16:00

Meeting Chair:

Kelvin Menon

CFO

Office of the Surrey PCC

Attendees:		Name			Initials		Role
Board Members:		Kelvin Menon			KM		CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC
		Iain McCulloch			IM		CFO, Office of the Sussex PCC
		Pete Gillett			PG		Director of Finance, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Daisanne Summersfield			DS		Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Adrian Rutherford			AR		Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Carwyn Hughes			CH		Head of Digital, Data & Technology Department Surrey & Sussex Police
		Tom Budd			TB		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Miles Ockwell			MO		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Danielle Mead			DE		Federation, Surrey Police
		Donna Lonsdale			DE		Federation, Sussex Police
		Tony Suter			TS		NARPO, Surrey
		Graham Bradley			GB		NARPO, Sussex
	Scheme Manager		Gavin Stephens	GS		Chief Constable, Surrey Police
	Scheme Manager		Jo Shiner	JS		Chief Constable, Sussex Police
	Board Advisors:		Cassidy Gillett	CG		Pensions Lead, Surrey
			Michelle Quirke	MQ		Pensions Lead, Sussex
			Isobel Tait	IT		Pensions Project Support Officer
			Shelia Love	SL		Pensions Project Support Officer
			Ben Read	BR		Equiniti
	Minutes:		Rachel Lupanko	RL		Office Manager, OPCC Surrey
	Guests

	Apologies:		CC Jo Shiner, CC Gavin Stephens, Danielle Mead & Adrian Rutherford
Part 1 – Open Session
Item					Owner
1		Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest			Chair
2		Minutes / Actions from Previous Meetings (15 minutes) · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions logs for Sussex and Joint Board		Paper Paper	Chair
3		Risk Register (10 minutes) · Review of Risk Register		Paper	Chair
4		Pension Administrator Summary (15 minutes) · Quarterly update to the Board Qtr 4 2021/2022 · Quarterly update to the Board Qtr 1 2022/2023 · Additional comments and queries raised by exception		Paper Paper Verbal	BR
5		Pension Remedy (10 minutes) · NPCC Letter on immediate detriment · Pension Remedy National Update · Surrey/Sussex Update		Paper Verbal Verbal	DS
6		GMP Reconciliation (10 minutes)		Paper	CG
7		Report on Scheme Membership · Surrey · Sussex		To follow Paper	CG
8		Pension Board Budget, Fees and Expenses Policy & Procedure - Update (5 minutes)		Verbal	SL
9		Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5 minutes)		Verbal	CG
10		Surrey/Sussex Work Plan / Timeline (5 minutes) · Review of upcoming quarter		Paper	Chair
11		Pension Board Training Log & CIPFA Pension Board Training Update (5 minutes)		Paper/verbal	Chair/CH
12		AOB (5 minutes)		Verbal	All
13		Date of next meeting – 25/08/2022		Verbal	Chair
14		Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)		Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
15		Minutes & Actions Part 2 (5 minutes)		Paper	Chair
16		Pension Administration Transfer Update (5 minutes)		Verbal	DS
17		AOB (5 minutes)		Verbal	All

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

23/11/2022

21/02/2023

Paragraph 3 - Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

Agenda

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:	Surrey Police and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)
Location of meeting:	Via Microsoft Teams

Date:	Wednesday 2 February 2022
Time:	13:00 – 15:00

Meeting Chair:

Iain McCulloch

CFO

Sussex OPCC

Attendees:		Name			Initials		Role
Board Members:		Kelvin Menon			KM		CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC
		Pete Gillett			PG		Director of Finance, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Daisanne Summersfield			DS		Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Adrian Rutherford			AR		Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Carwyn Hughes			CH		Head of Digital, Data & Technology Department Surrey & Sussex Police
		Tom Budd			TB		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Miles Ockwell			MO		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Danielle Mead			SP		Federation, Surrey Police
		Daren Egan			DE		Federation, Sussex Police
		Tony Suter			TS		NARPO, Surrey
		Graham Bradley			GB		NARPO, Sussex
	Scheme Manager		Gavin Stephens	GS		Chief Constable, Surrey Police
	Scheme Manager		Jo Shiner	JS		Chief Constable, Sussex Police
	Board Advisors:		Cassidy Gillett	CG		Pensions Lead
			Jo Langley	JL		Pensions Lead
			Isobel Tait	IT		Pensions Project Support Officer
			Mark Chapman	MC		Equiniti
			Louise Monk	LM		IHR Case Officer
	Minutes:		Rachel Lupanko	RL		Office Manager, OPCC Surrey
	Guests		Clair Alcock	CA		NPCC

Apologies:

CC Jo Shiner and CC Gavin Stephens

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Minutes / Actions from Previous Meetings (20 minutes) · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions logs for Sussex and Joint Board	Paper Paper	Chair
3	Report on Scheme Membership	Paper	CG
4	Risk Register (10 minutes) · Review of Risk Register	Paper	Chair
5	Pension Administrator Summary (15 minutes) · Quarterly update to the Board · Pension Portal Update · Additional comments and queries raised by exception	Paper Verbal Verbal	MC
6	Pension Remedy (10 minutes) · Pension Remedy Update · Surrey Sussex Update	Presentation Verbal	CA (NPCC) DS
7	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5 minutes)	Verbal	CG
8	Surrey/Sussex Work Plan / Timeline (5 minutes) · Review of upcoming quarter	Paper	Chair
9	Pension Board Training Log (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
10	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update (5 minutes) · Surrey · Sussex	Paper Paper	LM
11	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All
12	Date of next meeting – 25/05/2020 at 2pm	Verbal	Chair
13	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
14	Minutes & Actions Part 2 (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
15	Pension Administration Transfer Update (20 minutes)	Verbal	DS
16	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All

Future meetings are planned for the following dates:

24/08/2022

23/11/2022

21/02/2023

EXCLUSION OF PRESS AND PUBLIC

The Surrey Police and Sussex Police Pensions Board assists the Scheme Manager in his / her governance and administration of the Police Pension Scheme. Accordingly the principles and requirements under the Act apply, and documents produced by the Board will be separated appropriately (at the Chair of the Board’s discretion), into open (Part 1) and closed (Part 2) business.

Paragraph 3 - Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

Agenda

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:	Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)
Location of meeting:	Via Microsoft Teams

Date:	Wednesday 10^th of November 2021
Time:	12:00 – 14:00

Meeting Chair:

Iain McCulloch

CFO

Sussex OPCC

Attendees:		Name			Initials		Role
Board Members:		Kelvin Menon			KM		CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC
		Pete Gillett			PG		Director of Finance, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Daisanne Summersfield			DS		Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Adrian Rutherford			AR		Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		ACC Dave Miller			DM		Assistant Chief Constable, Sussex Police
		Tom Budd			TB		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Miles Ockwell			MO		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Danielle Mead			SP		Federation, Surrey Police
		Daren Egan			DE		Federation, Sussex Police
		Tony Suter			TS		NARPO, Surrey
		Graham Bradley			GB		NARPO, Sussex
	Scheme Manager		Gavin Stephens	GS		Chief Constable, Surrey Police
	Scheme Manager		Jo Shiner	JS		Chief Constable, Sussex Police
	Board Advisors:		Cassidy Gillett	CG		Pensions Lead
			Jo Langley	JL		Pensions Technical Lead
			Isobel Tait	IT		Pensions Project Support Officer
			Mark Chapman	MC		Equiniti
			Lou Monk	LM		IHR Case Officer
	Minutes:		Rachel Lupanko	RL		Office Manager, OPCC Surrey

Apologies:

CC Gavin Stephens, Daisanne Summersfield, Miles Ockwell, Cassidy Gillett & Mark Chapman

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Minutes / Actions from Previous Meetings (20 minutes) · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions logs for Sussex and Joint Board	Paper Paper	Chair
3	Risk Register (10 minutes) · Review of Risk Register	Paper	Chair
4	Pension Administrator Summary (15 minutes) · Quarterly update to the Board · Pension Portal Update · Additional comments and queries raised by exception	Paper Verbal Verbal	MC
5	Discretions Policy (5 minutes)	Paper	CG
6	Pension Remedy (10 minutes) · Latest Update	Verbal	CG
7	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5 minutes)	Verbal	CG
8	Surrey/Sussex Work Plan / Timeline (5 minutes) · Review of upcoming quarter	Paper	Chair
9	Pension Board Training (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
10	Sussex Pension Board Annual Report (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
11	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update (5 minutes) · Surrey · Sussex	Paper Paper	LM
12	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All
13	Date of next meeting – 02/02/2022	Verbal	Chair
14	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
15	Minutes & Actions Part 2 (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
16	Pension Administration Transfer Update (5 minutes)	Verbal	JL
17	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All

Planned dates of future meetings:

02/02/2022

PART ONE ITEM 14

EXCLUSION OF PRESS AND PUBLIC

The Surrey and Sussex Police Pensions Board assists the Scheme Manager in his / her governance and administration of the Police Pension Scheme. Accordingly the principles and requirements under the Act apply, and documents produced by the Board will be separated appropriately (at the Chair of the Board’s discretion), into open (Part 1) and closed (Part 2) business.

Paragraph 3 - Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:	Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer) – Extraordinary Meeting
Location of meeting:	Via Microsoft Teams

Date:	13/10/2021
Time:	08:00 - 09:30

Meeting Chair:

Iain McCulloch

CFO

Sussex OPCC

Attendees:		Name			Initials		Role
Board Members:		Kelvin Menon			KM		CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC
		Pete Gillett			PG		Director of Finance, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Daisanne Summersfield			DS		Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Adrian Rutherford			AR		Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		ACC Dave Miller			DM		Assistant Chief Constable, Sussex Police
		Tom Budd			TB		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Miles Ockwell			MO		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Danielle Mead			SP		Federation, Surrey Police
		Daren Egan			DE		Federation, Sussex Police
		Tony Suter			TS		NARPO, Surrey
		Graham Bradley			GB		NARPO, Sussex
	Scheme Manager		Gavin Stephens	GS		Chief Constable, Surrey Police
	Scheme Manager		Jo Shiner	JS		Chief Constable, Sussex Police
	Board Advisors:		Cassidy Gillett	CG		Pensions Lead
			Kelly Ellison	KE		Pensions Officer
			Isobel Tait	IT		Pensions Project Support Officer
			Mark Chapman	MC		Equiniti
			Lou Monk	LM		IHR Case Officer
	Minutes:		Rachel Lupanko	RL		Office Manager, OPCC Surrey

Apologies:

CC Gavin Stephens

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
Item			Owner
3	Police Pension Administration Procurement Decision (40 minutes)	Paper	CG/DS
4	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All

Planned dates of future meetings:

10/11/2021

02/02/2022

EXCLUSION OF PRESS AND PUBLIC

Paragraph 3 - Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

Agenda

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:	Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)
Location of meeting:	Chief Officers Meeting Room, Surrey Police HQ or via Microsoft Teams

Date:	Thursday 22 July 2021
Time:	10am – 11.30am

Meeting Chair:

Iain McCulloch

CFO

Sussex OPCC

Attendees:		Name			Initials		Role
Board Members:		Kelvin Menon			KM		CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC
		Iain McCulloch			IM		CFO, Office of the Sussex PCC
		Pete Gillett			PG		Director of Finance, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Daisanne Summersfield			DS		Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Adrian Rutherford			AR		Director of People Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		ACC Dave Miller			DM		Assistant Chief Constable, Sussex Police
		Tom Budd			TB		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Miles Ockwell			MO		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Danielle Mead			SP		Federation, Surrey Police
		Daren Egan			DE		Federation, Sussex Police
		Tony Suter			TS		NARPO, Surrey
		Graham Bradley			GB		NARPO, Sussex
	Scheme Manager		Gavin Stephens	GS		Chief Constable, Surrey Police
	Scheme Manager		Jo Shiner	JS		Chief Constable, Sussex Police
	Board Advisors:		Cassidy Gillett	CG		Pensions Lead
			Kelly Ellison	KE		Pensions Officer
			Mark Chapman	MC		Equiniti
			Lou Monk	LM		IHR Case Officer
	Minutes:		Rachel Lupanko	RL		Office Manager, OPCC Surrey

Apologies:

CC Gavin Stephens, CC Jo Shiner, ACC Dave Miller and Tom Budd

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Minutes / Actions from Previous Meeting (20 minutes) · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions logs for Surrey, Sussex and Joint Board	Paper Paper	Chair
3	Terms of Reference & Other Constitutional Pension Board Documents (15 minutes)	Paper	Chair
4	Risk Register (10 minutes) · Review of Risk Register	Paper	Chair
5	Pension Administrator Summary (20 minutes) · Quarterly update to the Board · Pension Portal Update · Additional comments and queries raised by exception	Paper Verbal Verbal	MC
6	NPCC Pensions Update	Paper	Chair
7	Pension Remedy (10 minutes) · Latest Update	Verbal	DS
8	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5 minutes)	Verbal	CG
9	Surrey/Sussex Work Plan / Timeline (10 minutes) · Review of upcoming quarter	Paper	Chair
10	Pension Board Training (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
11	Pension Board Annual Report for Scheme Advisory Board (10 minutes) Surrey Sussex	Paper To follow	Chair
12	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update (5 minutes) · Surrey · Sussex	Paper Paper	DS
13	Annual Board Expenditure Report (5 minutes) · Surrey · Sussex	Paper To follow	Chair
14	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All
15	Date of next meeting - TBC	Verbal	Chair
16	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Paper	Chair
Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
Item			Owner
17	Pension Administration Transfer (5 minutes)	Verbal	DS
18	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All

Planned dates of future meetings: TBC

Exclusion of press and public

The Surrey Police and Sussex Police Pensions Board assists the Scheme Manager in his/her governance and administration of the Police Pension Scheme. Accordingly the principles and requirements under the Act apply, and documents produced by the Board will be separated appropriately (at the Chair of the Board’s discretion), into open (Part 1) and closed (Part 2) business.

Delete if not required:

Paragraph 1 - Information relating to any individual

Paragraph 2 – Information which is likely to reveal the identity of an individual

Paragraph 3 - Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

Department/ Division:

Pensions Dept. Surrey & Sussex Police

Name:

Surrey and Sussex Police - Joint Pensions Board (Officer)

Location of meeting:

Microsoft Teams

Click here to join the meeting

Date:	Thursday 22 April 2021
Time:	10.00 – 11.30

Chair:

Simon Patter

Surrey Police Federation

Attendees:		Name			Initials		Role
Board Members:		Kelvin Menon			KM		CFO, Office of the Surrey PCC
		Iain McCulloch			IM		CFO, Office of the Sussex PCC
		Pete Gillett			PG		Director of Finance, Surrey & Sussex Police
		Daisanne Summersfield			DS		Head of Shared Business Services, Surrey & Sussex Police
		ACC Dave Miller			DM		Assistant Chief Constable, Sussex Police
		Tom Budd			TB		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Nick May			NM		Superintendent’s Association, Sussex Police
		Simon Pater			SP		Federation, Surrey Police
		Daren Egan			DE		Federation, Sussex Police
		Tony Suter			TS		NARPO, Surrey
		Graham Bradley			GB		NARPO, Sussex
	Scheme Manager		Gavin Stephens	GS		Chief Constable, Surrey Police
	Scheme Manager		Jo Shiner	JS		Chief Constable, Sussex Police
	Board Advisors:		Cassidy Gillett	CG		Pensions Lead
			Kelly Ellison	KE		Pensions Officer
			Joanna Langley	JL		Pensions Lead
			Mark Chapman	MC		Equiniti
			Lou Monk	LM		IHR Case Officer
	Minutes:		Rachel Lupanko	RL		Office Manager, OPCC Surrey
			Annalise King	AK		Secretary

Apologies:

CC Gavin Stephens, ACC Dave Miller & Tom Budd

Part 1 – Open Session
Item			Owner
1	Introduction and Apologies (5 minutes) · Declaration by the Chair that the meeting is quorate · Apologies for absence and welcome to Guests · Conflicts of Interest		Chair
2	Minutes / Actions from Previous Meeting (30 minutes) Surrey · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions log Sussex · To agree the minutes and actions of previous meetings · Progress on actions log	Attached Attached	Chair
3	Draft Terms of Reference (10 Minutes)	Attached	Chair
4	Pension Administrator Summary (30 minutes) · Quarterly update to the Board · Pension Portal Update · Additional comments and queries raised by exception	Attached Verbal Verbal	MC
5	Review of Reported Breaches for Surrey & Sussex (5-10 minutes)	Verbal	CG
6	Work Plan / Timeline (15 minutes) · Review of upcoming quarter – Surrey · Review of upcoming quarter - Sussex	Attached To follow	Chair
7	Risk Register (15 minutes) · Review of Risk Register – Surrey · Review of Risk Register - Sussex	Attached Attached	Chair
8	Pension Board Training (5 minutes) · Review of Pension Board Training Log – Surrey · Review of Pension Board Training Log - Sussex	Attached Attached	Chair
9	Scheme Advisory Board Quarterly Update (10 minutes) · Quarterly letter	Attached	Chair
10	Pension Remedy (10 minutes) · Latest Update	Verbal	DS
11	Ill Health Retirement & Injury Award Update (5 minutes) · Surrey · Sussex	Attached To follow	DS
12	Review of Privacy Statement (10 minutes) · Surrey	Attached	DS
13	Review of Internal Dispute Resolution Policy & Procedure (10 minutes) · Surrey	Attached	DS
14	Consideration and Discussion of Actions in advance of the next meeting (5 minutes)	Verbal	Chair
15	AOB (5 minutes)	Verbal	All
Item			Owner
16	Date of next meeting	Verbal	Chair
17	Exclusion Notice (5 minutes)	Attached	Chair

Part 2 – Closed Session (in Private)
Item			Owner
18	AOB (15 minutes)		DS

Planned dates of future meetings: TBC

Pensions Board

Pension Board Administration

Documents

Annual Report - 25 August 2022

Pension Board Membership 2022-2023

Joint Chair

Joint Deputy Chair

Board Members

Pension Board Administration

Full Privacy Notice

Terms Of Reference

Minutes

25 May 2022

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

2 February 2022

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Surrey & Sussex Board Members:

Guests:

10 November 2021

Joint Pension Board (Officer)

12 October 2021

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer) Extra Ordinary Meeting

Date: 12/10/2021 at 08:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Iain McCulloch

22 July 2021

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 22 July 2021 at 10:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Iain McCulloch

22 April 2021

Title: Surrey/Sussex Police – Joint Pension Board (Officer)

Date: 22 April 2021 at 10:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Chair: Simon Patter (SP)

6 February 2020

7 November 2019

8 August 2019

Agendas

23 November 2022

25 August 2022

Exclusion notice 25 August 2022

Exclusion of press and public

25 May 2022

Exclusion Notice 25 May 2022

22 February 2022

Exclusion Notice 22 February 2022

10 November 2021

Exclusion Notice 10 November 2021

PART ONE ITEM 14

EXCLUSION OF PRESS AND PUBLIC

13 October 2021

Exclusion Notice 13 October 2021

22 July 2021

Exclusion notice 22 July 2021

22 April 2021