Administration of the Civil Service Pensions Schemes

Concepts

• pension fund administration
• administration of the civil service pensions schemes
• administration of civil service
• liverpool
• civil service compensation scheme
• civil service pension scheme
• royal mail statutory pension scheme
• administration of civil service pensions
• civil servants
• present civil servants

Location

Liverpool

Description

The administration of civil service pensions for more than 1.5 million past and present civil servants and more than 250 employers; the provision of pension payroll and injury benefit services; and services in connection with the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, which provides compensation to civil servants in the event of redundancy.

Total Quantity or Scope

Cabinet Office is responsible for the management of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) and the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme (RMSPS) - the third and sixth largest pension schemes in the UK respectively. The CSPS is currently administered under contract by MyCSP Ltd and the contract is due to expire on 31 December 2021. Additional work has become necessary between early 2021 and mid 2023 In order to allow the contracting authority to meet its obligations in response to the McCloud judgment on the transitional protection elements of the 2015 public sector pension scheme reforms. This cannot be carried out by an alternative provider for economic and technical reasons without causing significant inconvenience or substantial duplication of costs for the contracting authority. Accordingly, the contracting authority has entered into an agreement with MyCSP to extend the contract by two years. The RMSPS is currently administered under a separate contract with Capita, which expires in September 2023.

Award Detail

Award Criteria

CPV Codes

• 66523100 - Pension fund administration services

Indicators

• Award on basis of price.

Legal Justification

Cabinet Office is responsible for the management of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) and the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme (RMSPS). MyCSP Ltd administers the CSPS, and the contract expires on 31 December 2021. Additional work has become necessary to allow Cabinet Office to meet its obligations in response to the McCloud judgment on the transitional protection elements of the 2015 public sector pension scheme reforms (the “2015 Remedy”). An alternative provider cannot deliver this work for technical reasons, and without causing significant inconvenience or duplication of costs. The principle technical issue is the need to administer the 2015 Remedy from early 2021 alongside the core scheme administration, which timeline precludes the opportunity to procure and transition the services to an alternative provider. It is expected the 2015 Remedy will take three years to complete. Continuing with the current provider allows the Cabinet Office to meet the immediate needs of scheme members who have already taken pensions and may need to have their pensions adjusted under the 2015 Remedy or who have been denied ill health retirement pensions which may be granted due to the 2015 Remedy. In addition to meeting the needs of those retiring over the coming few years. For a third party to deliver the 2015 Remedy separately from the core pension administration would require substantial duplication of costs and be technically difficult due to the need to; replicate the scheme calculations through a second pension administration system; transition and duplicate scheme data; maintain two parallel databases; and interface data between two administrators to ensure consistent and accurate communication with members and employers to calculate the benefits. Accordingly, Cabinet Office has entered into an agreement with MyCSP to extend the contract by two years and to deliver the 2015 Remedy programme. Cabinet Office expects to commence a new procurement exercise for the administration of both CSPS and RMSPS in Q2 of 2021. As set out in the additional information section, Cabinet Office will carry out pre-market engagement to inform the procurement exercise for replacement CSPS and RMSPS contract(s).

Other Information

Cabinet Office expects to run a single procurement for both schemes. An advert will be published in Q2 of 2021 with contract award in 2022. To inform the procurement, Cabinet Office is undertaking pre-market engagement and would welcome views from suppliers on: Delivery Model, Service Transformation, Transition, Technology, Commercial models and risk appetite.