North Yorkshire councillors are to consider whether a series of breaches involving the county’s pension fund should be reported to the Pensions Regulator.
Members of North Yorkshire Council’s pension fund committee will be asked at a meeting next week to review the fund’s breaches log and determine whether a report to the regulator is required.
The log includes two recent data protection breaches involving pension scheme members’ personal information being accidentally sent to other members.
In one incident, a member who contacted the fund about claiming their deferred pension had their reply sent to somebody else.
The email contained their name, date of birth, mobile number, email address and part of their National Insurance number.
A second incident involved an email attachment containing another member’s initials, surname, pay reference and pay information being sent to the wrong person.
Both were attributed to human error.
Staff have subsequently been reminded to double-check emails and attachments before sending them.
However, the council’s data governance team assessed both incidents as low impact because only one member was affected in each case and no systemic problems were identified.
The breaches log also highlights problems with pension contributions from participating employers.
Four employers missed the statutory deadline for July payments, ten failed to submit their returns on time and five submitted figures which did not match payments received.
Four employers also had previously reported issues which remained unresolved.
The late July contributions totalled about £3,000 and were described as not significant.
Three of the four longer-running cases were also considered minor, although one multi-academy trust had accumulated underpayments of around £30,000.
The report also records four complaints during the April to June quarter.
Two concerned applications for ill-health early retirement being declined, while another related to difficulties getting through by telephone and problems with the new member portal.
The fourth concerned a death grant being paid incorrectly.
Officers said their review had found no pattern among the complaints requiring further attention.
The service also received five commendations during the quarter, including praise describing staff as “patient, friendly and extremely professional” and the service as “exceptional”.
Despite the issues, 95 per cent of customers surveyed rated the service good or excellent, exceeding the 94 per cent target.
However, 94 per cent of measured work was completed within target against an aim of 98 per cent
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