Registered Administrators
November 2008
The Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2008 (“the Act”) was signed into law on 7 March 2008.
Pension changes within the Act include in Part 3 amendments to the Pensions Act in relation to registered administrators of pension schemes, following the "Report of The Pensions Board to The Minister for Social and Family Affairs on Trusteeship".
Under the Act from 1st November 2008, the Trustees of all Schemes must appoint a ‘Registered Administrator’ to provide them with ‘core administration functions’.
Core administration functions include:
- Preparing the member benefit statements,
- Drafting the Trustee Annual Report, and
- Maintaining sufficient records to produce the above.
Registered Administrators are responsible for:
- Preparation and delivery of member benefit statements within 5 months of the Scheme year-end;
- Preparation and issue of the draft Trustee Annual Report (incorporating draft accounts where applicable) for review by the Trustees within 8 months of the Scheme year-end.
These documents will be issued to the Trustees directly or via the Employer.
Based on the information provided by the Employer and the Trustees, Registered Administrators need to keep accurate and sufficient records of the Scheme members and their entitlements, to enable the discharge of their duties as set out above.
The amendment provides that Registered Administrators must register with the Pensions Board. The Board will have responsibility for auditing administration service provision.
This amendment will alleviate poor standards that were in operation historically as third party administrators are unregulated.
Registered Administrators - Eurostat Requirements
Regulations concerning structural business statistics require all EU member states to furnish specified information to Eurostat.
For pension schemes and trust RACs the required information includes details of the scheme type, benefits, status, membership, fund value and contributions and benefits. This statistical information corresponds closely to the information required for the preparation of scheme annual reports.
The relevant statistical information must be provided in respect of each scheme and trust RAC to the Pensions Board on an annual basis within 9 months of the scheme year end, for schemes which commence on or after 1st January 2008.
The responsibility to provide this information to the Pensions Board is with Registered Administrators in respect of the schemes and trust RACs for which they are responsible.
In the case of small trust RACs, the trustees themselves will have ultimate responsibility and in respect to public service schemes, the Administrators will have responsibility.
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