Agenda and minutes

No apologies received.

There were no declarations of interest.

A copy of the notes from the previous meeting held on 24 April 2017 are attached, for information.

Notes of the previous meeting held on 24 April 2017 were presented to the Pension Board.

Action Agreed:

[1] That the notes of the meeting held on 24 April 2017 be agreed as a correct record.

Report of the HR Business Support Manager.

The HR Business Support Manager presented her report, which provided an update on topical issues relating to the Firefighters Pensions Schemes including;

·        Membership statistics

·        Pension Administrator Performance

·        Firefighter Pensions Scheme Advisory Board – Update

·        Pension Tax Training

·        Voluntary Scheme Pays

·        Retained Injury Pensions Taxation

·        Regulatory Amendments

·        The Pension Regulator Annual Survey

·        Annual Benefit Statements

·        Contracted-Out Scheme Reconciliation

·        Annual General Meeting – Update

·        HMRC Pension Dashboards

·        Exit Payment Cap

The Chair suggested that it may be useful for the Pension Board meetings be scheduled to align with Kier’s reporting periods to allow the board to receive the most up to date information.

Agreed: That

[1]       Pension Board meetings to be scheduled following the receipt of Kier’s performance reports on a bi-annual basis.

A Board member raised a concern that a small number of scheme members still had not received their annual statement. The HR Business Support Manager explained that following the issue being raised she had contacted Kier Pensions to ascertain the reason for this. She explained that the error was caused by a technical interface error and provisions had been put in place by Kier to avoid this happening again.

The Board discussed ways in which they could identify those who had not received their annual statement. The Deputy Chief Fire Officer suggested that an article be submitted in The Green Bulletin after the Annual Statements had been released to advise staff to contact HR if they had not yet received theirs.

Agreed: That

[1]       HR Business Support Manager to ensure article is published in The Green Bulletin following the release of Annual Statements each year.

[2]       A reconciliation exercise will be undertaken to determine that all expected annual benefit statements have been produced.

The Director of Transformation distributed a copy of the draft risk register. The Board considered the format of the document. The Deputy Chief Fire Officer suggested that the register be amended to align with the Corporate Risk Management Framework in terms of scoring rationale and format. The Chair suggested that the risk register also include rationale around the scoring for each of the risks.

Agreed: That

[1]       The format and scoring rationale be amended to be adherent to           the Corporate Risk Management Framework

[2]       Rationale based on the risk scoring is included for each risk on the register

[3]       The content of the risk register be signed off subject to the aforementioned amendments.

The Director of Transformation distributed a draft copy of the Reporting of Breaches Policy. She explained that following feedback from Board members, a number of changes had been made to the responsible persons section to include the Monitoring Officer, Section 151 Officer and Director of Transformation and the job title for the Director of Transformation had been corrected.

Agreed: That

[1]       The policy be approved.

The Director of Transformation explained that the Pensions Contract was due for renewal in September 2018. She explained that Cheshire Constabulary had approached Cheshire Fire to explore collaboration opportunities in relation to the future contract. She  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Nothing raised.