A number of active and retired scheme members supported us by contributing to a review in Summer 2023 into the pensions administration function, and your feedback was greatly appreciated. This led to developing a business case to consider the potential outsourcing of the function in October 2023, which began internal consultation with trade unions and those impacted by the potential change.

We are very grateful for the constructive input of not only the pension section and trade unions, but also our Pension Board and colleagues from our procurement team. Following three months of consultation, the decision was taken to withdraw the business case at the Joint Consultative Committee held last week on 10 January – we will not be considering outsourcing further at this time.

This decision to stop consultation was made for a range of reasons, including the long lead-in time for any such change (likely 12-18 months), which would likely significantly negatively impact pensions administration in the interim. The significant workload associated with McCloud Remedy that needs to be completed by March 2025, the likely high level of cost involved and the lack of interest from within the wider sector in taking on such a contract (likely linked to the McCloud remedy).

Instead, the service is now focused on how it can strengthen and support the work of the existing team by bringing in additional staffing, and considering what investment is required in training and systems. We appreciate that in the short-term retiring staff and pensioners may see a service that is slower than we aspire to, but please know that the pension administration team are working extremely hard to provide support to you while also contending with a range of additional challenges, such as Remedy.