End of an era
Bryan Monkman FCIPP reminisces on retirement from his long-term pensions role with the CIPP
I n September 1963, I started as a junior clerk in the Treasurer’s Department at the rather sooty County Hall of Lancashire County Council. (It’s near the train station and steam trains were the order of the day then.) My first week in the income tax section involved filing a big heap of papers in the basement in my Burton nine-guinea suit. I complained to my dad but he just said “Stop moaning, it’s all part of your job so just get on with it!” So I did, and moved on to dealing with tax codes and queries. I asked my boss once why we only got calls complaining about paying too much tax and never from those who had been mistakenly given tax refunds. He said “Bryan, you have a lot to learn.” He was right. In the wages section I spent five years on an education payroll inputting hours on punch cards and learning all about the vagaries of national insurance, tax and sick pay deductions. After a spell as a senior clerk dealing with the famous quarterly national insurance card exchanges, I made my first foray into the dusty world of superannuation – you were expected to know how to spell it from day one – and the the wonderful world of manual calculations, massive filing cabinets containing members’ personal folders and heavy dusty binders in the basement. Keen for new challenges after local government reorganisation (LGR) I moved to Cheshire County Council in 1975. During my thirteen years there, pensions were dragged into the twentieth century with the development of the computerised local authority superannuation system that was to be used by all local authority pension funds. It proved to be a very successful public/ private partnership. Here began my involvement with the Association of Payroll and Superannuation
but I’m not sure I succeeded. In 1998, when APSA and the British Payroll Manager’s Association merged to form the Institute of Payroll and Pensions Managers (IPPM), Bill Fulton and I were asked to take the first batch of pension students through the second year of the new Diploma in Pensions and also to attend the weekend school. This was the start of a long journey with IPPM and later the CIPP on pensions: tutoring, writing assignments, updating course material and becoming a moderator. Despite retiring in 2006, I returned to pensions in Cheshire for 2.5 years with another LGR in 2009. A short spell at Flintshire County Council in 2012 finally brought my local government employment to a close. If you’re not at the coal-face, it’s difficult to keep up with the changes – hence my decision to hang up my LGPS boots. I have seen big changes from manually based systems to online interactive computerised systems both in payroll and pensions, and I feel proud to have played a major role in making this happen. I’m not sure radical changes like this will happen in the next ten years, rather smaller incremental changes; maybe online payroll/pension information to mobile phones to satisfy the millennial generation who check their phones every ten minutes. I am pleased that the world of payroll and pensions is now recognised as a professional vocation. It’s been a long journey to fruition of the Foundation Degree in Pensions with the CIPP and I felt honoured to be awarded pensions tutor of the year in 2007 and receive a lifetime achievement award in 2011. I hope I have, in a small part, inspired all those students I’ve met on the way to take the opportunity when it arises and move onward and upward in their careers as I have. o
Bryan Monkman FCIPP
Administrators (APSA) – as education/ publicity officer I produced a newsletter for our regional members. We had regular meetings with authorities in the North West and North Wales, with lively debates on payroll and pension issues that continued in the pub afterwards. In 1989, my ambition to become a pensions manager was met when I moved to Clwyd County Council. In 1991, I was promoted to payroll and pensions manager. It was back into the cut and thrust of payroll much to the chagrin of the pensions staff noting I spent 60% of my time on payroll. Not long into this job, the IT system suffered meltdown and I was asked to extend the BACS processing dates. I rang BACS – no joy; and the Treasurer tried too – no joy. His pithy comment to BACS was “Do you mean to say in this age of instant news of Mr Maxwell walking off his yacht you can’t extend your deadline by one day?” Challenging times beckoned in the 1990s: development of a bespoke payroll system, transferring weekly paid staff to monthly pay and bank credit payments, another LGR, and back to being a pensions manager at Flintshire County Council. I also became chairman of our pensions managers’ group which gave the opportunity for meetings in London in a specialised group discussing local government pension scheme (LGPS) legislation with senior civil servants. It was a chance to use my diplomatic skills to adopt a practical and simpler approach to pensions legislation –
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2016 | Issue 23 20
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