We are continuing to make progress in the timeliness of first pension payments with a total of 3731 applications paid in February so far (25 February) 96.05% were paid either early or on time. The total applications on hand remain stable despite it being our peak processing period.
We are now able to process applications for retirements after 8 April 2019 as we have received the Pensions Increase factors from the Government Actuaries Department for the forthcoming year.
No issues are being reported by our contact centre, all 4 pension lines are within normal SLA.
First pension processing - next steps
Following the successful completion of the recovery plan at the end of November 2018, a new project has commenced in our aim to further improve the service we provide to our customers, by increasing the number of first awards into payment by someone’s retirement date.
As part of the recovery plan phase, significant progress has already been made in our efforts to pay a members lump sum for their retirement date, with a steady increase month on month. Furthermore, we have processed 89.43% for the retirement date.
Even though we are continuing to improve, we still find that customers are contacting us throughout their retirement journey as it can sometimes be a while from the submission of their application to their retirement date.
We call this “failure demand” because someone has contacted us to find out what is happening with their claim.
In order to improve this, we are looking at the order in which we process applications so that individuals find out much sooner in the process and we have better managed expectations which should reduce their need to contact us as:
- they're aware we have received their application
- they know when their benefits will be paid, in most cases soon after receipt
There are a number of strands to the project, these include:
- review of any training requirements for administrators
- creation of supporting materials such as process and training guides
- process Improvement review
- continue the digital development of the AW8P
- keeping you informed of progress
- workflow management – to make sure any changes are reflected in our workforce management tool that is used to allocate the work in priority order to administrators
We'll provide regular updates as part of our monthly performance update so you can see what progress is being made and we may even get some of you involved as we push these improvements forward.
Revised Pensions (AW171) – next steps
As we prepare for the system functionality to be delivered, we have formally launched a business readiness project to closely track a number of different work streams.
We have a number of strands to the project, these include:
- Compendia development requirements
- business process review and continuous Improvement
- review of any training requirements/materials for administrators
- keeping you informed
- initial triage and data readiness for the work on hand
- workflow management
Part of the analysis will be to look at the different reasons for a revised award to put them together into specific “pots”.
This creates efficiencies, as work in each pot will be similar and administrators become quicker in dealing with them.
Once we've completed the analysis, we'll be able to share more details in terms of volumes on hand.
We're continuing to track the Compendia development. This is a big change and the timescales to deliver are much clearer now. Full delivery is more likely to fall during Quarter 2 2019. Leading up to that time, we'll slowly start to process more cases and particular urgent cases on demand.
We'll provide regular updates as part of our monthly performance summary so you can see what progress is being made.