Barnet Council’s pension fund has largely recovered from an era of errors under Capita, with its new administrators overseeing significant improvements in the handling of member data.
The London Borough of Barnet took the decision to end its contract with Capita in February last year after seven years of Capita Employee benefits administration, during which the scheme was fined by the Pensions Regulator and twice defrauded by Capita employees.
Things had begun to improveafter the regulator intervened in late 2019 as the scheme introduced a range of new internal controls, and the correction of 40,000 lines of data as part of a lengthy and much-delayed cleansing exercise.
The scheme’s administration was handed over to the West Yorkshire Pension Fund in February. The Local Government Pension Scheme was already overseeing a shared service arrangement for itself and fellow LGPS funds Lincolnshire and Hounslow.
Capita has been unable to find any real explanations for why these members were deleted
Mark Fox, Barnet Council
The WYPF officially took over administration of the scheme in November, and the change in administrators has led to a considerable month-by-month improvement, according to a council report first covered by the Barnet Borough Times.
“In the six months since the transition, WYPF has improved its performance each month, despite having experienced difficulties with data and records inherited,” the report stated.
It noted that council officers have received “several positive feedback responses from employers and members regarding the service provided by WYPF”.
WYPF processed 1,393 “actual member cases” in March. Though the report noted that work in progress levels “remains high”, the load has begun to reduce, with outstanding cases now numbering 2,008, compared with 2,700 in early February.
It reported that 97.7 per cent of cases in March were completed to specified targets, and officers “continue to monitor WYPF performance by way of fortnightly meetings and a monthly administration report”.
Missing data reported to the ICO, TPR
The transfer of administrative duties from Capita to WYPF was not without its difficulties. The data for 59 members was missing after the handover, requiring investigation by both WYPF and Capita in a bid to track it down.
It was found that, in the majority of cases, the records had been properly deleted, whether because they were duplicates or because they had been created by mistake. However, the data for 13 members remained missing.
Barnet Council pensions manager Mark Fox told a council meeting that Capita “has been unable to find any real explanations for why these members were deleted”, and confirmed that the matter has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office and TPR.
The council report noted, however, that there is reason to believe that these 13 cases were also either duplicates or created in error.
“WYPF has received the records for these members from Capita and any associated image files for the deleted records, and is in the process of recreating these records on its pensions administration system,” the report stated.
Fox confirmed that “once West Yorkshire confirms that these records have been updated, we’ll regard this matter as closed”.
“TPR has responded and advised that they’re going to take no further action regarding this matter,” he added.
Remediation plans continued
Capita had been working on a remediation plan before having its contract ended, one which WYPF has taken over and developed at no additional cost to the council, Fox confirmed.
Barnet sacks Capita and joins LGPS shared arrangement
The London Borough of Barnet has ended its contract with outsourcer Capita as the administrator of its pension scheme after a litany of breaches and scandals while it oversaw the Local Government Pension Scheme section.
“WYPF has provided officers with a data improvement plan, which sets out the data issues identified and its timescales for correcting the data,” the report explained.
“The priority work is to ensure that the data is correct for the calculation of pension increases due to pensioners in April 2021, and then the production of annual benefit statements. Officers have offered to assist WYPF where required.”
A large number of members who left the scheme remain outstanding, cases WYPF has inherited from Capita, and council officers “are working with WYPF to ensure that these leavers are processed in time for the deadline of annual benefit statements, which is August 31 2021”, the report stated.
