The principles behind the portal that should enable access to more up to date information and the ability to self-process data to maintain information in the system on a timely basis are good ones.

However, the execution has been poor leaving parties that are trying to use the system with time-consuming difficulties.

PCSE have responded quickly to the issues as they have been raised putting in fixes to their system and communicating updates to users in regular weekly feedback but particularly as far as the pensions side of the portal is concerned the legacy problems remain.

• Some LMC levy deductions were not collected in June. This has been rectified on the next month’s contractual payment and deductions will be taken for June, alongside the normal July deductions.

• Some practices have not received the full amounts due in their June statement. An ad hoc payment was made on or around 6 July to rectify this. If there was more than one payment element missing, this will be paid in one lump sum.

• Some practices received an overpayment of the QOF Aspiration payment in their June statement, caused by an issue during the migration from the old system to the new one. The issue will be rectified in the August pay run.

• Some practices have not had pensions contributions deducted for all of their GP Performers in their June statement. PCSE are investigating the issue and the team is working to resolve this quickly for those who are affected. PCSE have also identified an error which means some GPs had duplicate pensions payments taken in June. To rectify the issue, GPs are either being refunded in August, or no pension deduction will be taken in July. PCSE have notified GPs individually and their practices.

• Some practices have not had the correct global sum payment shown on their statements. The payment for July-September will show in two locations. The majority will show under the main GSUM heading and the remaining amount under the adjustment heading but showing as a GSUM code. The actual payment is not affected. The PCSE team are working to resolve the issue.

• Users will now be able to resubmit rejected locum claims following an issue where Locum GPs were unable to resubmit once rejected.

• Improvements have recently been introduced to enable GPs to search their employee pension contributions by type of work e.g., locum, salaried, practitioner and to view only contributions that have been taken. On the end of year screens, it is now easier to see if the certificate is a Type 1 or Type 2.

• Non-GP Provider partners are now able to view their data on the practice statement.

• A fix is being made to the end of year listing screen that will allow users to see the information held for previous year pension certificates along with any certificates started/submitted via PCSE Online.

• A fix is in development which will prevent users submitting a new estimate if they still have estimates in draft. The draft estimate must be submitted first as this will remove the risk of duplicates.

• A change is being developed to allow more than one Locum B form submission per month, but the submission must be related to a month where no form B has previously been submitted.

• The monthly GMS statements look a lot better now than in June but when you download them in a CSV format they come out with extra lines/info. Practice managers and accountants simply want the transactions listed in an appropriate summary that adds up to the net payment total received into the bank account, so they can upload the information easily into their bookkeeping systems.

• Processing of pension certificate information needs to be more accurate between the allocation to the different schemes.

• There needs to be the ability to process current pension certificate and update information correctly even if there are still outstanding legacy issues to be dealt with for prior years.

We will continue to actively monitor the situation. We believe PCSE are doing their best to try to resolve the problems as effectively as possible but some of the legacy pension issues covering several years will not be a quick fix.

^{*The views expressed are the author’s and not ICAEW}