Fiona Dunsire was appointed Authorities Actuary in late 2023 for a five-year time period – the primary lady to tackle the position. She leads the Authorities Actuary’s Division (GAD), which offers recommendation and evaluation to different authorities departments and a few public sector organisations.
“GAD resembles a personal sector consultancy by way of tradition, the usage of trendy processes and instruments and even time recording,” Dunsire explains. Nevertheless, it faces a excessive degree of exterior scrutiny as a result of most of its work is printed, that means she additionally has a major hands-on technical position – way more than a personal sector chief would. This was one of many issues that attracted her to the job, on prime of the general public service alternative, she says.
Dunsire beforehand loved a protracted and profitable profession at Mercer. Having certified as a pensions actuary, she then moved into funding consulting and went on to steer the agency’s funding enterprise. She was appointed CEO in 2012 – a place she held till 2019.
In her ultimate years at Mercer, Dunsire was chargeable for rising its funding and retirement companies throughout Asia, the Center East, Africa and Latin America. “It was a really numerous expertise, having to adapt my fashion to completely different cultures, and there have been many government-related purchasers – much like GAD,” she observes.
Entry all areas
GAD is sort of a small crew, with 220 folks throughout areas in London and Edinburgh, and a few rotation between groups to supply workers with wider expertise. As a part of the civil service, it advantages from the Catapult mentoring scheme, designed to progress folks from much less socially advantaged backgrounds. Staff may transfer to different departments, typically briefly. Even at very senior ranges, workers can discover alternatives to carry out management roles at different varieties of organisations.
Secondments from the division, of which there are numerous, final for one to 2 years, though Dunsire notes that it has “an nearly everlasting secondee at NHS Decision, the physique that pays scientific negligence claims”. Usually, she explains, “secondment is a extremely good improvement instrument and technique of sharing analytic capabilities”.
GAD is a vital a part of the Authorities Evaluation Operate (AF), a cross-departmental community for all civil servants working in authorities evaluation whose intention is to foster extra collective problem-solving and consistency throughout careers. In a single latest improvement, it has made a few of its giant datasets accessible to completely different groups for numerous functions, streamlining the info assortment course of.
The AF can throw sources at any drawback – throughout Covid, for instance, GAD was in a position to second a senior actuary to jobshare with the deputy director of healthcare analytics on the Division of Well being and Social Care. The secondee was additionally a part of the crew that developed the QCovid mannequin, which predicted who was most susceptible to the virus.
Nevertheless, GAD is “distinctive throughout the AF”, in accordance with Dunsire, as a result of all authorities actuaries are employed by it, “whereas economists, statisticians, knowledge scientists, operational and social researchers and so forth are unfold throughout departments”.
Bringing pensions updated
“GAD’s work is way extra numerous than is perhaps imagined from the surface,” Dunsire says – it even analyses premium bond numbers to examine they’re actually random. Nevertheless, a few third of its work pertains to public sector pensions, largely unfunded pension schemes corresponding to these of civil service workers, academics, and NHS, hearth and police workers. These cowl round 15 million lives in whole.
For the 2024 actuarial valuations, the division might be utilizing simpler strategies – together with synthetic intelligence (AI) – to course of the info extra rapidly. It’s presently exploring the way it can use a big language mannequin to establish the right rules for numerous complicated pension calculations, thus offering high quality assurance (QA) throughout public sector pension directors. The crew would then write Python code to carry out the calculations and examine the administrator’s outcome.
Information evaluation may throw gentle on strategic points. For instance, when the Native Authorities Pension Scheme (LGPS) Advisory Board was investigating its gender pensions hole, GAD was in a position to amalgamate knowledge from throughout all 87 funds.
“It was an fascinating instance of Simpson’s paradox, the place the perceived gender pension hole at a person native authority degree was a lot lower than while you mixed the info,” Dunsire reveals.
“Whereas GAD offers some enter, key assumptions for its actuarial valuations are set centrally by the Treasury,” she continues. The 2020 valuations had been held up because of the McCloud judgment, which dominated that the general public schemes had discriminated in opposition to youthful members and wanted to plan cures.
The division is presently engaged on the Part 13 report into the LGPS funds to touch upon regulatory compliance, consistency of method, solvency and long-term price effectiveness. In earlier studies it commented on the inclusion of local weather evaluation, which is now embedded throughout the native valuations.
How do you get essentially the most out of individuals? Be optimistic, resilient, motivational and humble
Sturdy security internet
GAD’s insurance coverage reserving shopper base has grown considerably. In 2024, it’s going to have been concerned for 10 years with the chance safety association for faculties, wherein the federal government offers a substitute for industrial insurance coverage. GAD is concerned within the scheme’s set-up, design, common provisioning, pricing and ongoing finest apply. “It’s expanded over time to incorporate, for instance, cyber threat,” shares Dunsire.
The division’s worldwide work has additionally grown, particularly in catastrophe threat finance, threat pooling and activating non-public sector capital. Its work primarily includes finishing up due diligence on monetary buildings: for instance, through the Overseas, Commonwealth & Growth Workplace, it helps the African Threat Capability by way of a sequence of threat swimming pools to make sure funding is out there forward of pure disasters. Such parametric insurance coverage releases cash when pre-agreed parameters are hit, concentrating on these locations that want it.
“I’ve been very impressed with our modelling capabilities,” says Dunsire. “Our Analytical Options Group does all of the analytical work, which quantities to about 40% of what we do. Fashioned only some years in the past, it has grown to about 80 folks with numerous backgrounds. They’re repeatedly looking for enhancements and a few fascinating trendy approaches, corresponding to the usage of dashboards to assist talk the output of fashions, are being taken at a tempo of change one would anticipate within the non-public sector.”
A mark of high quality
GAD’s QA work can also be rising. “We don’t have the sources to construct fashions for all authorities departments, however we will convey unimaginable worth due to the best way we take into consideration the issue – particularly testing assumptions and their consistency,” says Dunsire. The division’s place inside authorities means it’s simple to share knowledge, and as a non-profit it’s particularly good worth.
QA includes three levels: verification (is the mannequin performing as anticipated?), validation (are the info, assumptions and methodology acceptable?), and governance (how is the mannequin documented, up to date and used, and are its limitations and uncertainties clear?).
“We feature out all three levels in quantities relying on the challenge,” Dunsire explains.
GAD typically carries out QA for compensation scheme fashions. Throughout Covid it supplied QA for the mannequin constructed by the British Enterprise Financial institution, chargeable for the Covid lending scheme supporting small and medium-sized entities. It additionally has 4 everlasting secondees on the Contingent Legal responsibility Central Functionality, an analytical and advisory unit inside UK Authorities Investments that goals to strengthen authorities contingent legal responsibility experience.
Eyes on the horizon
GAD’s present technique runs to 2025 and it’s within the early levels of its subsequent plan. What are among the essential themes? “Our horizon scanning might want to have a look at the fiscal challenges and systemic dangers we face within the UK, corresponding to altering demographics, the ageing inhabitants, long-term care and the influence of local weather change,” says Dunsire. “We should be capable to assist key coverage selections within the subsequent 5 years, such because the assessment of the state pension age due inside two years of the subsequent parliament.
“I’m particularly eager to see us proceed to embed innovation throughout the entire organisation. We have to perform our common work as effectively as doable, to create space for brand spanking new areas of labor.” Use of AI might be key right here, she notes.
“We additionally must proceed to develop the management abilities of our folks. An efficient organisation has robust leaders all the best way down.” How do you get essentially the most out of individuals? “Be optimistic, resilient, motivational and humble.”
It’s not simply management abilities on her thoughts. “The combination of abilities inside GAD wants continuous monitoring as nicely, with an growing want for folks with extra numerous backgrounds. I’ve talked about analysts, however probably folks with extra credit score threat capabilities.”
She is eager to see GAD diversify its work and shopper base, “as a way to debunk what folks suppose we do and for us to be the go-to associate throughout authorities for any work involving monetary threat and knowledge analytics, and to be included in early discussions”.
Dunsire’s time period appears set to coincide with a very fascinating interval of evolution and innovation – we stay up for seeing her in motion.
