Lewisham Council's Pension Board is addressing data quality to ensure accurate pension administration, following the identification of several issues through ongoing data cleansing efforts.
The board discussed these issues during its meeting on 23 September 2025, as part of a general update from the pension administration team. The update also included a review of the TPR General Code of Practice (GCOP), a pension audit, and the dashboard integrated service provider (ISP).
According to the agenda for the meeting, the data cleansing tool has highlighted instances where deferred benefit members died several years ago. Beyond deceased members, the data cleansing efforts are also focused on changes of address and date of birth checks. The team is now focused on establishing a process to trace the next of kin in these cases, which can be a lengthy process.
The team aims to complete a data improvement plan by the December 2025 pensions board meeting.
The General Update -September 2025 Part 1 report noted that over 12,500 Annual Benefit Statements (ABS's) were processed and sent out by the 31 August 2025 deadline. The ABS project highlighted additional work relating to members who attained age 65 between 01/04/2022 and 31/03/2025, which the team will need to complete by the end of the 2025/2026 scheme year. The team is required to calculate their Pensionable Pay as at age 65 and update the McCloud rectification data view on Altair because the underpin is calculated at date of leaving or age 65 if earlier. This affects around 100 members.
The GCOP tool checker is an ongoing piece of work which will be reviewed at regular intervals. A review meeting will take place on 11 September 2025.
The team was working with KPMG on the 2025 audit, with the audit ongoing until the end of October 2025.
Work on the first phase of the ISP has taken place, with matching criteria agreed and testing completed. The ISP Phase 2 kick off meeting will take place on 11 September 2025, and the work is due to be completed in time for the Lewisham Pension Fund staging date which is 31/10/2025 (statutory date). Although Lewisham will connect to the Dashboard by 31/10/2025 it will not be Live until 31/10/2026.
