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Isle of Wight Council

The Isle of Wight Council Pension Fund administers the Local Government Pension Fund for eligible employees of scheduled and admitted employers on the island.

With over 4,300 active members and 32 employers, the Fund’s assets amount to over £695 million.

Isle of Wight have been a Heywood customer for over 35 years and registered to use i-Connect in September 2020.

Isle of Wight
collaboration

The objective

Maintaining good-quality data is key to the efficient and effective administration of a pension scheme.

The Isle of Wight Council Pension Fund is made up of 7 people, with time dedicated to regular administrative duties and meeting regulatory requirements.

Data capture was a largely manual process, with signficant amounts of time spent across the year on managing the capture of employer data before uploading it in the administration system.

As the administration team found themselves spending inordinate amounts of time on manually intervening and rectifying incorrect data submissions, the Fund set out a Data Improvement Plan in 2019, mandating that pension data be provided electronically, on a monthly basis.

The benefits

  • Automated data exchanges

    Employers submit data and make payments on time - the Fund experienced a 60% drop in breaches compared to the previous year.

  • Improved backlogs

    The faster processing of deferred benefits and estimates via i-Connect has eliminated the need to wait for this information from the employer.

  • Reduced processing

    Annual Benefit Statements, Annual Allowance and other reconciliatory work is processed much faster, allowing for time to be allocated to data analysis.

The project

5 The fund experienced an intitial apprehension regarding the time and effort spent onboarding employers to i-Connect; however, this was mitigated by the immediate and tangible positive impact on employer compliance.

The Fund project lead was supported by Heywood and spent time with the employers when they were processing their first submission to guide them through the process.

As i-Connect will not allow an employer to upload poor quality or inconsistent data, the oneoff effort of introducing the software resulted in process and operation efficiency savings.

"i-Connect has removed our backlogs and enables us to look forwards instead of backwards"

Customer success

With almost 50 years of pension experience behind us, we’ve got a long history of quality, expertise and success. Plus a customer portfolio that speaks volumes. Thanks to our award-winning solutions, you’ll be empowered to meet any challenge, and fully equipped to create optimal outcomes for your members.