Barnet Council has made a “significant improvement” to the running of its pension fund after facing regulatory action.

A report by The Pensions Regulator reveals the council has corrected around 40,000 lines of data, brought in more detailed reports and bolstered internal controls to help fix a “catalogue of errors” in its pension scheme.

Problems with the retirement fund – which is run by private firm Capita – included £1.7 million of late contributions and “a lack of clarity over its member data”.

In June, the regulator told the council to fix problems with the scheme by the end of August or face a fine of up to £50,000.

Its regulatory intervention report, published on Friday (October 25), says the council was not able to correct all the errors by August 31.

But it adds it will not take further action against the council following “improvements in record-keeping standards”.

In 2017, Barnet Council became the first local authority to be fined by the pensions watchdog for failing to submit a scheme return.

The regulator’s report says it found “a number of weak governance processes within the fund, which included a lack of oversight covering member data quality and the payment of contributions”.

It adds: “We also had concerns about delays in providing information to members, and that these had not been reported to us in a timely manner.

“This meant savers didn’t receive the information they were entitled to on time – and there was a strong possibility that the information they were sent was incorrect.”

The report says the council was initially over-reliant on “third-party service providers” and had “limited oversight” of the work these providers were doing.

But that has now changed, and the scheme manager “receives more detailed reports, with mechanisms in place to challenge the information they are given”.

Council leader Cllr Dan Thomas said: “We’re very pleased this report highlights the significant progress that has been made in relation to our administration of the Local Government Pension Scheme. We needed to get things right and it’s very encouraging the fund is now in a much better place.

“We are committed to our responsibilities as scheme manager and will now do everything we can to continue to build on these improvements and provide a high-quality service to scheme members and employers.”