Garry Wake, MD of Trafalgar House, commented: “One of the major hurdles when it comes to assessing administration in the UK pensions industry is the fact that, much like in many other areas of life and industry, things have to often get beyond repair to prompt a change. Partly an element of ‘better the devil you know’, but also partly because it can feel like a mammoth task – expensive and both time and resource consuming.
“What is unusual in the pensions industry is that a switch to a new consultants or investment manager happens far more frequently if things aren’t going well, so why does admin not follow suit? Surely this shouldn’t be the case, decent and proper admin is as important as a good adviser or a manager that delivers a healthy return – it is the bedrock of all scheme activity and future planning.
“The industry needs an easy, low-risk and cost-effective switch procedure with associated industry performance standards to prevent obstacles being created by legacy providers which are, sadly, a regular occurrence. The world has, or indeed should have, changed from firms needing weeks to recover paper files and missing information and there should be a demand from schemes for their information to be completely accurate and up-to-date, making it moveable at any point in time at their command.”
Wake adds: “Having an administrator that suits your scheme is vital. Advancements and innovation in technology and member service have really created a differentiation in the market that trustees should be searching for. For many schemes there are not only significant cost savings available by searching the market, but also the chance to fulfil the scheme’s de-risking and continuation planning more efficiently. Quite simply, they owe it to their members to ensure they have the most appropriate providers in place.”
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