9 October 2025

Kent Police Pension Board

Introduction and apologies

Attendees

Apologies

1. Conflict of interest

No conflicts of interest declared.

2. Previous minutes

Previous minutes approved.

3. Actions and updates

Full updates provided on Action Log.

4. Pension and Governance Manager

Decision: Following K Kirby’s departure, E Lewis dealt with the IHR pension applications, but this has now been passed over to A Hook who will be in post for six months. During this time, she will review how the Pension and Governance post will function and offer resilience in the future, taking into account the new legislation for pensions. The three options moving forward are an exact replacement of K Kirby’s post; a few members of staff at a lower grade dealing with the work; or outsourcing the post. A Hook will use the guidance published by the MPCC to decide the structure moving forward. Dan Pearce expressed a wish to be involved in this process as well as he has been involved in previous research around this.

5. Scheme Manager appointments

Decision: Anna Hook has been appointed in the interim.

Action 06/25- A Hook to complete the paperwork and training necessary to be appointed to the Board, which will be signed off by N Mennie.

6. Breaches of law procedure

No new material breaches.

7. XPS SLA performance

Action 07/25: Full up to date figures were unavailable so a report detailing the current figures is to be circulated after the meeting to all members. This is to include why the figures have decreased and how this will be rectified.

Decision: A report will be provided prior to each meeting with details of the figures to date.

Decision: July SLAs were 92 %, August’s was 86.7% and September’s was 83.4% so the average for quarter is 88.4%. The decline in percentage was discussed and it was decided that the reason for this would be investigated and included in the report to be circulated, as well as how this will be rectified re Action 07/25. Anybody who hasn’t had a statement yet will be contacted to state that they will receive their SLA.

RSS
99% of ABSRSS statements due by the end of August were issued on time. These will continue to be issued weekly until all the reports have been issued. Those who have not received their statements will be contacted to keep them informed.

96% of deferred members have had either an ABS or an ABSRSS, with a commitment made to issue all of these by the end of September. It is the legacy data issues that are preventing some of the statements from being issued. Kent has the highest level of issuance.

Decision: There is a priority for members that did not have a statement for 2024 and still haven’t had one for 2025. Figures on the number of members who have not received a statement for both years will be available later today. It was unknown why the system was unable to produce the statements so J Castle requested a report with details of those who haven’t received as report, the reason why and how this will be rectified.

Action 08/25- T Clarke to produce a report with details of those members who have not received an ABS or ABSRSS report in 2024 or 2025; the reasons why the reports haven’t been issued and how this will be rectified.

Immediate Choice – There has been an increase in resources dealing with this so these should be available by the end of October. The guidance required for the PSO cases has now been issued and reviewed so calculations are being done so that these can be resolved by the end of October. Actions 1 & 2 to remain open.

Aurora system- Work on moving to this administration system is progressing. There has been contact with scheme managers to work on this and there will be sessions aimed at associations in the future. XPS want to become more holistic by working with police agencies to help vulnerable members navigate the system.

8. Remedy

This was covered in the update above.

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

Decision: The Governance Risk Assessment reports were considered with no change in risks. In the future, A Hook will produce the paperwork previously produced by K Kirby and more recently by H Ryder, particularly concentrating on establishing best practice. On the audit paper, Reg 37 is showing as red as still waiting for guidance, although there is nobody applying for ill health retirement who fits this category and any that do apply will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Regarding governance, everyone needs to make sure that the relevant training has been completed and recorded.

Pension dashboard
Costs have been agreed, and all other conditions have been met and T Clarke confirmed that the contract has received back, so this can be considered as complete. The implementation of the dashboard is running to schedule although this will not be available to the public for at least another year. It was agreed that the pension dashboard rating should now be green, not amber.

Bereavement packs for widows/widowers
Following a meeting with Sussex officers, Bob Pollard was introduced to the bereavement packs made available to widows and widowers which showed the process through a flowchart and felt that this would be good for Kent. T Clark confirmed that XPS have rolled out the bereavement packs for all forces in the last few months, so it should be available for the Kent Scheme.

10. Any other business

PMAB- There has been a delay in processing cases whilst a new chair on the PMAB board was trained. They will start processing cases in January 2026, so availability is for the first six months in 2026, rather than the usual 12 to 15 weeks. B Pollard asked that under Reg 28, officers are paid their full wage so that they are not disadvantaged.