Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won the tender for the government's pension auto-enrolment scheme following a public procurement process.
TCS was awarded the 10-year contract, reported to be worth €10m, following the passing of the landmark Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill, pending presidential approval.
The Indian-headquartered company has a global delivery centre based in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal and currently provides pension administration, cyber security and IT support. The group also administers the UK's equivalent auto-enrolment scheme, NEST, with c.13m participants.
That doesn't sound like a lot for a 10 yr contract.
I know TCS actually run loads of pensions in the UK (I believe Aviva have outsourced their IT and possibly customer service to them), so it shouldn't be too hard for them. Do they also have the UK NEST auto enrollment? The big blocker will be a lack of a fund manager.10 years to implement, more like.
A highly complex project, particularly when Revenue won't be the Dept. routing the money.
Revenue were open to running the collection part. It would just be threatened as another tax to collect and enforce collection of. A few more fields add to their existing PAYE Modernisation system. Now employers will have to deal with two organisations and systems, the second largely duplicating the functions of Revenue.10 years to implement, more like.
A highly complex project, particularly when Revenue won't be the Dept. routing the money.
Yes, TCS implemented NEST, but the UK tried to replace them and failed.I know TCS actually run loads of pensions in the UK (I believe Aviva have outsourced their IT and possibly customer service to them), so it shouldn't be too hard for them. Do they also have the UK NEST auto enrollment? The big blocker will be a lack of a fund manager.
Yep.. they will make things so unnecessarily complex, non-standard, undocumented, unfathomly unclear and completely unportable.Yes, TCS implemented NEST, but the UK tried to replace them and failed.
FFS, I work in a role with payroll, and between err, PRSI increases , auto enrollment it's been tough , we have so many different systems and processes for our business, it's getting so messy , payroll systems , expenses system, in house systems and all the government systemsYep.. they will make things so unnecessarily complex, non-standard, undocumented, unfathomly unclear and completely unportable.
This guarantees future revenue for them as no other organisation can take over. Ever.
I have first hand experience here.
My guess is they decided not to use Revenue so that no-one could point to it as evidence of this just being a new tax.Seriously though, auto-enrolment contributions are functionally the same as other payroll taxes like USC, PRSI, and income tax and should be collected in exactly the same way.
Not choosing Revenue to collect is a massive unforced error. Completely ignored by our fine journalists and from what I can tell opposition legislators as well.
Auto enrolment going to be like the TV license which is avoided by 35% of the population at about 10x the cost of what Revenue could collect it.
There is going to be a public outcry in 5-10 years when the administrative cost of auto-enrolment is totted up and the small numbers of workers taking advantage of it is revealed.
There are no published specifications, so no work can be done.However other important projects are coming in so we are trying to allocate staff and resources to both and ifs stretching people and I'm worried we are burning out our developers and support teams working on something now for that could ultimately be delayed
She does spin and PR very well, politics, many advisors to assist in the game of course.My opinion - someone in their fourth decade of working in the pensions industry - not a hope of AE being up and running in January 2025. We're nearly into Q4 of 2024 and, while the legislation was passed, the formal rule book has not been published - the manual answering all the questions people have, like "How does AE interact with other forms of pension some people might already have, like Personal Pensions or PRSAs?" and a hundred other questions.
I'm not aware that the fund managers have been selected yet.
I'm not aware that TCS has even started recruiting for all the staff they will need to run the system.
Most tellingly, the person who has been really driving this whole project - Heather Humphreys - has recently said that she might consider postponing the start date, after listening to the concerns of SMEs worried about all the additional costs landing on them from AE and other areas. A lovely bit of politics there, Heather - don't admit that you were never going to be ready anyway and spin it that you're only postponing because people have asked you to.
Throw in a General Election in the meantime. Heather Humphreys might or might not be in the same job afterwards. To her credit, she has made more progress on the AE project than any predecessor in the past 18 years. Will a different minister be as motivated to push it over the finish line?
I genuinely do hope that AE comes into existence eventually, but I doubt that it will be January 2025 or anytime in 2025 at all.
The department said the legislation had now been enacted and Tata Consultancy Services, a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation, had been selected as the preferred bidder to administer the system on behalf of the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA).
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?