18 February 2026

Kent Police Pension Board

Introduction and apologies

Attendees

Apologies

1. Conflict of interest

No conflicts of interest were declared.

2. Previous minutes

The previous minutes were approved.

3. Actions and updates

Full updates are provided on Action Log. Some actions are reported on below.

4. Pension and Governance Manager

Nothing to report.

5. Scheme Manager appointments

Nothing to report.

6. Breaches of law procedure

No new material breaches.

7. XPS SLA performance

M Keating reported that the KPI’s for this quarter are at 97%, with the previous quarter 2 standing at 98%, so a strong performance was reported on SLAs.

Regarding the immediate choice, active and deferred statement production for the IC McLeod cases, almost 100% have been produced. There are two outstanding cases that are being discussed with H Ryder and the Pensions Team.

With the active ABS cases, there were 19 outstanding at the last meeting, which has now been reduced by six cases, so that 13 remain outstanding. There are 13 reports left to issue for the ABSRSS and for standard ABS there are six reports outstanding. Whilst the deferred ABS stood at 21 outstanding cases at the end of the last quarter, there are now only nine left to issue. XPS will contact the Pensions Team to discuss the remaining ABS RSS and deferred RSS reports and determine a timeline for these to be resolved.

Aurora migration

The Aurora platform went live in January 2026 and communications were sent to all registered members of the MSS Scheme. To date, there has been 2,600 Kent members registered for My Pension resulting in over 3,000 calculations run by members on the self-service platform. Of these, about 1,000 are active members, over 250 are deferred and about 1,600 are retired, so there has been good engagement with the service. There is a dedicated member of the Connect Team dealing with any queries around the usage of the site.  

XPS have liaised with Hayley Ryder regarding XPS One and XPS will provide a demonstration of the service before the Pensions Team are given access. The new system will allow additional reporting capabilities, including self-serve.

The PSO cases have all been completed as of the end of the quarter. There was a query around providing a list of active and deferred members which has been shared with NPCC and the Pensions Team and there will be a monthly report on this moving forward.

Regarding the dashboards, there has been preparation work undertaken on data cleansing.

J Castle confirmed that there had not been any notifications of disapproval from the pension members so the feedback was very positive and thanks were given to XPS for their work getting the system working smoothly. N Mennie felt that the My Pension platform was an easy system to use.

8. Remedy

H Ryder asked when the remaining contingent decision RSS statements will be dispatched, as KP have done all of their paperwork for this now. M Keating confirmed that with McLeod coming to an end, XPS have full resources working on the contingent decisions and expect all of these to be completed by the end of the year, except for the cases on pause. Once a timeline is known for the paused cases, XPS will inform the Pensions Team.

9. Public Services Pension Act 2013 section 249B internal controls framework

No risk ratings to report.

10. Pension dashboard

There has been a lot of preparation for data cleansing with more capacity for reporting since the migration to Aurora. The XPS scheme was successfully connected to the Pensions Dashboard. At the moment, there is a period where all the schemes are connecting to the dashboard with a deadline of 31 October 2026, before it becomes available to the public which is predicted to be in 2027. Testing of the dashboard is beginning to be undertaken by the Money and Pensions Service and the dashboard is finding fine data requests so the technology is working well.

Once the scheme is operational, XPS will be obliged to provide values data which will be updated manually and a Member Connect Team and Administration Team will be available for any queries.

J Castle queried whether members will be able to see all their available pensions on the dashboard, both police and pensions from other employers if applicable. Toby Clark confirmed that the dashboard will be applicable for live and deferred members. The ethos of the dashboard is to show all pensions that you have paid into to allow for financial planning prior to retiring. There will be six months notice before the dashboard goes live.

11. Changes to Police Pension contribution rates

H Ryder asked for any feedback on the communications that are due to be shared on SharePoint and sent out to members regarding the changes to the Police Pension contribution rates. Some people are going to benefit from lower rates especially those working part time. It was felt that the communications were clear and understandable.

12. Any other business

N Mennie has had some queries from members about how quickly scheme members who cases have still not been resolved could be progressed. The federation’s national pension lead has advised that in urgent cases, the scheme manager should contact the NPCC, as it is the scheme members discretion to be able to retire a person. H Ryder confirmed that the cases on pause cannot be progressed as it is unclear which scheme they should join. This needs to be carefully considered to avoid future legal issues. N Mennie explained that the NPCC should be providing guidance and the scheme manager should be using their discretion on whether a person can retire, on the basis that this can be corrected later if necessary. T Clark felt that there appears to be conflicting advice available about this.

N Mennie reiterated that the Federations position is that the scheme manager needs to progress cases where an officer’s retirement is being impacted. T Clark explained that some of the members that have not come back within the 12-month deadline with their options choices may benefit from going back into the legacy from the reform scheme, but they haven’t made their decision yet. Guidance from the NPCC has suggested that a nuclear option could be used with the unprotected cohort, whereby a value should be put on each set of benefits and then the scheme manager makes a decision based on the figures. The immediate detriment cohort were able to make a choice at the time, so that they received the best option. J Castle felt that KP might not have anybody currently outstanding.

Next meeting: Wednesday 3 June at 10am