Many trustees are understandably nervous to change administrators. Trustees come and go from trustee boards and the administrators are often the “glue” which holds the long-term knowledge about a pension scheme. The reality is that no pension scheme should be beholden to any one supplier of services. If that knowledge is properly documented and the benefits accurately calculated, the “glue” is not required.
Changes of administrator are relatively complex project management exercises. At Probity, we believe they can be undertaken within sensible risk parameters, irrespective of scale and challenge. There is no reason why poor performing administrators cannot be replaced by newer players with better technology and track records, provided the right project management disciplines are followed. In fact, such transitions nearly always involve enhanced data cleansing and reveal some benefit errors. Hopefully, the latter are minor and easily fixed but we believe that the trustees’ job is expressed simply as follows:
Pay the right people, the right pensions at the right time!
