Raising Standards in Pensions Administration x Pensions Administration Standards Association

Raising Standards in Pensions Administration x Pensions Administration Standards Association

Raising Standards in Pensions Administration (RSPA) was established in 2002 after concerns were raised about the quality of the administrative services which were available to small pension schemes.

The issue of poor administration was first raised by Brian Fyfe of the small Engineers' and Managers Association pension scheme at the 2000 National Association of Pension Funds conference. This was further explored by Dunnett Shaw and Partners Limited, pension scheme administration advisors, who hosted workshops and held discussions with senior figures in the pensions industry to investigate the administration of pension schemes in 2001. This led to the production of a discussion paper on raising the standard of pension scheme administrative (see LMA/4587/B/01/001). This discussion paper formed part of a wider effort within the pension industry to improve pensions administration which ultimately led to the establishment of the RSPA: an open meeting on this subject hosted by the Occupational Pensions Defence Union in September 2001 led to the establishment of a steering committee led by Jocelyn Blackwell, Managing Director of Dunnett Shaw, in January 2002.

The RSPA's initial aim was to produce guidance notes to improve administrative standards, with the guidance notes being written by volunteers organised into working groups working on different sections of the proposed guidance: 'Starting a Pension Scheme', 'On-going Administration', 'Changing Administrators' and 'Winding up a Pension Scheme'. This was published in 2003.

In 2003 RSPA was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, and in December 2004 it was registered as a charity. After the publication of the guidance notes, RSPA worked on a pilot survey of members to assess the quality of delivery of administrative services, and working groups looked at preparing additional guidance, revising existing guidance and developing a website.

The RSPA is run by a board of trustees, with chairman, secretary and treasurer. A compliance committee monitors compliance issues particularly relating to fundraising. In April 2011 RSPA was rebranded as the Pensions Administration Standards Association, and continues to focus on setting standards of pension administration for the range of providers and has an additional goal of becoming an independent accreditation body.

Sources of information: http://www.raisingadminstandards.com/PASA_Prospectus.pdf, and http://www.opdu.com/report13_article5.htm [accessed 26 Jun 2011].