Customer Forum - Minutes of the Sixth Meeting
|
Contents
Les welcomed everyone to the customer forum. As there were attendees that were not present at the last customer forum, introductions and a brief outline of roles was made by all SPSS staff and forum members. The minutes of the last customer forum held on 19 July 2001 were agreed. 3. Matters Arising Item 5. Self Certification - Ann Walker Ann Walker explained that she was seeking advice on the point raised
at the last meeting, whether greater self-certification on routine matters
is possible, from the IR Solicitor. 4. Joint Pension Schemes System Jim Kitson told the forum that the revised project plans were in place.
One of the strands was to extend the single gateway pilot to evaluate
full implementation across the Industry. The forum was reminded that the
single gateway enabled one form to be sent into Government rather than
up to eight across three locations. A small pilot had been very successful
from both a Government and customer perspective in providing a streamlined
service and one of the providers involved confirmed no approval deadlines
were missed. However as only three providers were involved the process
was not fully tested. Jim Kitson explained APSS were looking to extend
the pilot from Mid January 2002 and offered forum members the opportunity
to take part. A meeting for interested parties was being held in Nottingham
on 5 December. Forum members would be invited to attend the meeting by
Stuart Cockayne in APSS. Stuart was also available for more information
prior to the meeting on 0115 974 1746. Ray Wheeler and Joanne Hitchcock
of James Hay, one of the current pilot participants, could also be contacted
to give the customer perspective on the pilot. These contact details and
a meeting invitation would be forwarded in the next few days. Jim Kitson
clarified that at this stage the involvement in the pilot extended to
forum members companies rather than all members of the representative
bodies, but there was no objection to more than one person from a provider
attending the 5th December meeting. Ann Walker explained to the forum that she was currently undertaking a review of all processes in Pension Scheme Services. The first of these was the Actuarial Valuation Report (AVR) reminding process. A number of them had been consulted for their views. The responses were that by and large they liked the reminders, which supported their own systems but that one would be sufficient if it was strongly worded and sent to the right people. Currently three standard reminders are issued which is very resource intensive. She was therefore going to reduce this to one strongly worded reminder, which would be sent to the trustee, the pensioneer trustee if appropriate, the administrator and the practitioner/Life Office. Withdrawal of approval would not follow automatically as it does now, instead, the withdrawal of the scheme approval will be considered on a case by case basis. If withdrawal of approval was considered appropriate then sufficient opportunity would be given to comply as well as warnings/reminders. APSS will be monitoring the impact of the changes to ensure compliance and that AVR's continue to be submitted and on time. Ann Walker asked for views on when the reminder should be sent to enable schemes to comply. She explained that unfortunately APSS systems could not cope with different dates for individual providers/practitioners. The responses had ranged from 6 weeks to 6 to 9 months before the due date. Forum members stressed that APSS must make it clear in the letter that only one reminder would be sent. A discussion on the most appropriate time for sending the reminder followed, members had different needs and wanted the reminder to fit in with their own process however, the following compromise was agreed: SSAS's = 8 weeks Ann Walker then asked what lead in time would be needed. Suggestions
ranged from immediately to 3 to 6 months. Ann suggested that all AVR's
with a due date on or before 31 March 02 would come under the current
procedure and then any with a due date on or after 1 April 02 the new
procedure. This was accepted, the point being made that it was important
to be clear when the old and new procedures applied. Les Shaw told the forum of the IR exhibition stand at the Pensions Show that was manned by APSS and COEG. Delegates at the show were asked to complete a questionnaire, which will help plan future education events. APSS held two workshops for IFA's in association with Fay Goddard (AIFA) and Peter Williams (SOFA) in Bristol and Edinburgh. The Bristol workshop was very well received but the Edinburgh workshop did not go so well, due to different expectations and diversity in the sector, however APSS had a commitment to continue with the workshops targeting the right people. Feedback received would be used to improve content and presentation. A future workshop is planned for January in London. APSS made a number of visits to Life Offices to consider how they can work together and it was useful to learn what can be done to make life easier. One item suggested was to revisit the Information Powers Regulations. Les Shaw reported that he had come across a group called the Pension Research Accountancy Group (PRAG) whose AGM was being held today and said that he was aiming to work with them and try to build on the work they are doing. He also outlined a keenness to have a named person as a point of contact.
Forum members welcomed a named contact and saw this as a good move. Ann
Walker expanded on this by adding that APSS was looking at how they were
organised and plan to have dedicated teams dealing with one practitioner
which would act as a deputy to the named person. The subject of consistency
with the teams was raised. Ann Walker said that it should lead to greater
consistency from APSS because the teams would talk to one Les Shaw said that some members might have noticed that had not been a postal survey this year and told members that this may go ahead next spring with either a telephone or face to face survey targeting a segment of our customer base. It is expected that the survey will be all embracing including SPSS colleagues in Audit and Bootle. Future customer education events planned for next year are the Employer Talks, where APSS have a joint exhibition stand with colleagues in COEG, these are held in different areas within all the IR Regions. The mailing list contract is ending and APSS will shortly be publishing details of the new one on their web site. The new contract starts in December. Forum Members liked the opportunity to have input into the frequently
asked questions (FAQ's) which are published on the IR web site. Les Shaw
said that he was happy to take further questions from forum members if
they are wide ranging. Jayne Banner on behalf of Paula Diggle explained that it would be inappropriate to discuss any possible policy changes as the PBR (Pre Budget Report) was due out the following week. Members would have seen quite a bit of press comment on its likely content. On Simplification no decisions had been made, there were lots of options and there needed to be a balance between simplification and compliance, taking account of costs. No detail had yet been worked out. Ultimately it was for Ministers to decide the direction they wanted to go. Jayne thought whatever happened there would be consultation. Forum members expressed concern about putting things off for one or two years because of simplification and then to find out that it does not affect them. Members also thought it would be nice to see a statement on what exactly is being simplified. Jayne Banner said she would pass this on to Peter Hopkins who is the project leader. Jacek Zdziarski demonstrated to the forum how the web page might look and spoke of developments to the functions and welcomed opinions on their preferred approach. He explained that the corporate image is being redesigned so the colours and look may change. The Forum members want the interface to be intuitive and speed of access is critical. The 'all in one hover' method was preferred with the 'links to new pages' least preferred. Members also want to retain the ability to print off pages. Forum members asked if changed words could be marked somehow, say in red. Jacek said that although this is possible it would not help people who are colour blind or those who alter the settings to override colour. Background highlighting to altered text is more effective but it remained to be seen if this would be acceptable to our web team in the light of the current review and their standards. Yet another key point to emerge was that since differed customer groups
had different priorities, the pension schemes page might present in different
ways to different groups of customers. Barbara Nesbitt said that she was attending the meeting to explain the role of PSTA and how she thought technical issues should be dealt with. In her opinion the Customer Forum was not the place to discuss technical issues as there were sufficient important customer service issues to be taken forward. PSTA meet with the Occupational Pension Scheme Joint Working Group twice a year and also meet with the SIPP Provider Group and the APT on a regular basis. They also meet representative bodies to discuss specific issues. Barbara said that she would be happy to hold these meetings more frequently if there was a need and she would raise this at the OPSJWG meeting to be held next week. PSTA is a team of thirty-seven working on a port-folio basis to provide technical advice and support to policy colleagues, to operational colleagues in APSS and the rest of the Revenue and to external customers. The responsibilities of the team were outlined and their achievements over the last three years. Barbara said that she was aware that there is still a lot to do but that her team is very keen to provide customers with the standard of service they want an deserve. Customers can help, however, in a number or ways. In particular by
The forum asked whether it was acceptable to ask for clarification of PN and Barbara Nesbitt said that it was. Ian Neale drew attention to Appendix VIII of PN. This sets out the maximum permissible funding rates on earmarked contracts and shows the 1994 method. Ian Neale said that a revised method had been agreed with the ABI in 1996, but this had never been incorporated in PN. Barbara Nesbitt said that she was aware of this and it is on the list of amendments to be done. She said she would check what progress has been made and report back. She apologised for the delay in this. She said members of the Forum to write to her setting out any other parts of PN which are not up-to-date. She said that there would be an Update coming out soon sweeping up a
number of PN amendments. 10. Contributions and Tax Relief for PP's Ian Neale gave everyone a list of issues and explained the list came from the Question Zone on web site. Issue 1. was the subject of an ABI Circular 12/9 giving the answer which is a definitive ruling. This highlighted a problem caused where a ruling made by the IR that had not yet been put into IR guidance and only those in the know were aware of the answer. Les Shaw agreed to take the remaining issues forward with Paul Blackwell in Bootle and COEG in Newcastle. The replies will be emailed to forum members or added to the minutes, if received in time. Chris Fox asked if there were any plans to merge PSI and PN, as they are different manuals covering the same subject. It was explained that PSI was intended as an internal guide for IR staff although a public view was available on the Web page under Manuals. PSI is in the process of being updated. Ian Neale put forward a general question on IR 76, where it covers only
one of a possible four scenarios and asked what mechanisms are in place
for ensuring that the other scenarios are included in future IR 76 amendments.
Barbara explained that this would be dealt with by the individual portfolio
holder. The PP team is quite small and the PP instructions are very up
to date.
a) Prior to the meeting Liz Hinchliffe had forwarded two questions for the forum to consider. The first, which was read out, expressed concern about the time spent in a 1% world chasing for NINO's, the response provided by Audit gave a short extension to the deadline. The second question concerned lump sum payments, which was covered in PSI 8.1.11, copies of this part of PSI were handed out. Liz asked if Derick Kielty's note would be published so everyone was made aware of this extension. Ann Walker agreed to discuss this with him. b) Ann Walker asked what the demand was for opening the helpline outside existing published times. The members agreed an opening of 8.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. generally met their needs. The forum thought that it would be good if the helpline could be backed up by an email address for the Technical helpline. Les Shaw said there was an IR wide ban on this, as among other things there are problems in managing expectations and workflow. c) Teresa Preece advised that when sending a PS 295 to APSS she always received a letter back asking for a PS 199 to be completed when it should be obvious from reading the PS 295 that a PS 199 is not required. Ann Walker will take this back and address the training need. d) Occupational Pension Schemes - A Guide for Trustees of SSAS's (PSO 3) is a new booklet and soon to be available on the web. Barbara Nesbitt apologised that it carried the name of the old office and said that at some stage we would be reviewing the names of all our publications. She said that any suggestions would be gratefully received. e) The forum expressed concern with Update 106 and asked that when existing forms are ceasing could a longer lead in time be given. f) The forum referred to form PS 122, which covers transfers under the reciprocal arrangements. The form is out-of-date in that it refers to Irish legislation, which has recently been consolidated. Also it appeared to ambivalent about Irish buy-out policies. Barbara Nesbitt said she would take this forward. g) Jayne Banner said that she is considering what priorities
should feature in next year's business plan and asked whether the current
targets are appropriate and meet the business needs of forum members.
For instance to what extent was the 6 day turnaround time to approve
pension scheme applications imperative. Jayne asked forum members to
let her have any suggestions for priorities and targets for next year
for APSS. Any comments must be sent to Jayne by the end of January 2002.
In order to focus this Jim Kitson would send a short summary of the
areas seen as the, key priorities from a Savings, Pensions and Share
Schemes perspective over the next three years. This was arranged for Tuesday 21st May 2002. The venue will be Room 116 New Wing Somerset House. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home | ||||
