Pension services

Tender description

Provision Of A Stakeholder Pension Scheme for the UK Armed Forces. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is seeking a Stakeholder Pension Contractor who will provide a designated pension scheme for relevant employees of the MOD, for active pension scheme members and dependants. The Contractor shall provide the Stakeholder pension facility from 1.4.2018 to 31.3.2021, with an option to extend for a further period of up to 2 years. The MOD is not seeking to provide a publicly cooperate benefit to Service Personnel, but to facilitate the availability of Stakeholder Pensions into which Service Personnel would pay on a voluntary basis. The Contractor shall operate MOD's designated Stakeholder Pension Scheme, and provide employees who choose to invest in the scheme with: a. A comprehensive and flexible range of investment options. b. An investment update shall be received by the member every 3 months either by email or post, whichever is the preferred member option. c. The ability to alter the amount of their contributions at monthly intervals and to stop contributions at any time. Such requests shall come into effect within 14 days of the request being made by the member; and d. a dedicated service team for the handling of applications/queries/ complaints, of which shall be provided Monday — Friday between the hours of 9:00 to 17:00 via telephone and email. — All telephone and email communication received from the member shall be answered within 3 working days. — All complaints received from the member shall be answered within 5 working days The MOD will not make employer contributions or make payments to the Contractor for running the scheme. All costs are to be met from the premiums paid by members. Contributions will be collected on a monthly basis. Contributions data shall be passed to the contractor electronically. The payment of Stakeholder pension contributions shall be of fixed monthly amounts of no less than 20 GBP, through payroll deduction, by the 19th of the following month, for which no administrative charge will be made. The Contractor shall be given access to the relevant groups of employees and active pension scheme members for the purposes of advertising the scheme. The relevant groups of employees are based at centres across the UK, including Northern Ireland, and those based overseas, which consist of all regular service members, and Reservists. MOD shall advertise the Stakeholder Pension Scheme to all employees through MOD channels, including internal MOD publications/instructions and MOD websites. — The Contractor shall be required to promote the facility through its own advertising channels. — The Contractor shall allow MOD to reproduce its Stakeholder advertising material without charge. — The Contractor shall be required to provide statistical and other Management Information (MI) to MOD. Information shall be provided on a monthly basis and shall include: — Product Performance, — Complaints, — Benchmarking. This will enable the MOD to assess, for example, the performance of all products supplied under the arrangement, customer service levels and marketing strategy. The Contractor shall not use the terms ‘approved by MOD’, ‘sponsored by MOD’ or ‘endorsed by MOD’ in any marketing or promotional literature associated with any products or services. The Contractor shall be responsible for the production and distribution of all marketing literature. The Contractor shall clearly state in all marketing and promotional literature that members of the Armed Forces are under no obligation to purchase any products and services offered by the Contractor. Should the MOD withdraw Stakeholder designation or the Stakeholder Pension Scheme be withdrawn from the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority's list of registered schemes, relevant employees may opt to maintain payroll deductions into a suitable pension arrangement with the Contractor.