Pension fund administration services

Tender description

Value of the field: The purpose of this PIN is to initiate engagement with the market for the provision and procurement of solutions required to manage the administration of pensions, payments and the provision of related customer and employer organisation interfaces and services for the Teachers' Pension Scheme. The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England and Wales) (TPS or the Scheme) is governed by statutory regulations (currently statutory instruments): • the Teachers' Pensions Regulations 2010 (as amended) and the Teachers' Pension Scheme Regulations 2014 (as amended); • the Department for Education (DfE or Department) has responsibility for maintaining a sound system of control and risk management that supports the successful implementation of these regulations. The current TPS contract is due to expire in September 2025, we envisage a transition period from 2023 onwards. The key requirement is to administer the TPS in accordance with the statutory regulations that govern the Scheme. Those regulations are currently the Teachers' Pensions Regulations 2010 and the Teachers' Pension Scheme Regulations 2014 (‘the Regulations’) as amended. The administrator will be required to work with the Department to ensure the regulations remain up to date and appropriate. The administrator will need to adapt the administration to ensure it remains compliant with and supportive of any changes introduced via regulatory change or case law; e.g. the McCloud/Sargeant judgment in respect of 2015 transitional arrangements. Administration of the Scheme must also comply with all other legislative requirements that have applied, apply, or will apply to the TPS. It is essential therefore that the contractor is proactive in monitoring, analysing, and adapting to new legislative requirements, ensuring the Scheme continues to adapt appropriately. The vision for the TPS is ‘to ensure that the TPS offers an attractive, clear and cost-effective contribution to the total reward package for teachers, and thus, that it plays a full part in recruiting and retaining an excellent teaching workforce’. To support the DfE the TPS administration will be accepted as the best administered UK public service pension scheme. Providing an effective, fully digital, personalised service to our members with our partners at the centre of the administration design. The TPS is the second largest pension scheme in the UK after the NHS. It is a statutory, unfunded, defined benefit occupational pension scheme split into three distinct sections: • the Normal Pension Age (NPA) 60 section; • the NPA 65 section (note: both these sections provide benefits based on final salary and length of service); • the 2015 section provides benefits based on career average earnings (CARE) and has a normal pension age equal to state pension age. The Department believes it is vitally important to make the procurement process as attractive and easy for pensions administrators and for other, non-pension providers, to engage with. Our view is that the procurement should be flexible enough to allow the ‘market’ to organise itself and bid for those aspects of the service it feels it can deliver optimally via either a consortia, prime, etc. It is our intention to hold a Virtual Industry Day and follow up events to provide the opportunity for one-to-one discussions, prior to the launch of a formal competition, currently expected to commence in August 2021. The Industry Day will be held on 28 January 2021 between 13.00 and 16.00. Due to Covid-19 restrictions this will take place via Microsoft Teams. A full agenda will be issued prior to the meeting taking place. Pre-registration will be mandatory and will need to be completed before 23.00 on 25 January 2021 to take part in this event. To register interest in the industry day please order tickets via EventBrite at the following address: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/teachers-pension-scheme-industry-days-tickets-132231819933 A follow up meeting on 4 February 2021 between 13.00 and 16.00 is also scheduled during which time questions from the previous week will be discussed in more detail, as required. Please note in the interest of ensuring a smooth-running day we are limiting attendance to three individuals from each potentially interested organisation. As part of this, we intend to share email addresses of attendees to allow organisations to network with each other. If you do not want your email address to be shared with other attendees, please let us know when you register to attend this event. The industry day itself will be recorded and shared with all interested parties. Questions will be encouraged and should be asked by text during the day. These will be answered via a follow up question and answer document which will also be made publicly available.