Customer Servicing Statement - February

Following the Pension Fund’s transition to a new administration system in July last year, the Fund saw a drop in service delivery performance with members transitioning to retirement impacted by delays and reduced customer servicing times.

Over the last 3 months, the Fund has worked with its software supplier to increase resource and further develop the system efficiencies and processing times.

During this time, the Fund has seen a three-fold increase in the processing of retirement benefits, with c1,900 items of casework processed together with a reduction in waiting times for information. The call centre is open for longer periods during the day and is continuing to support more customers.

The Fund’s member portal has over 63,000 members registered who are using the functionality to obtain annual benefit statements, payslips and update expressions of wish forms.

Rachel Brothwood, Executive Director of Pensions stated:

“We would like to reassure our members and employers, that we are making progress in recovering our service standards. We remain focussed on servicing those members who are seeking and waiting for retirement benefit quotations, payments and beneficiary benefits, prioritising those most in need and reducing aged casework.

This month we have launched our online benefit estimate functionality for active members with further developments set to assist and enable more members and employers to self serve.

Both the Fund and our system provider, Equiniti, remain committed to improving customer experience.

We would like to thank our members and employers for their ongoing patience, support and understanding at this time.”

Members can access further information via the Pension Portal and the Fund continues to provide regular member updates.