"Make Administration Great Again." It’s not often that a pensions conference produces a slogan worthy of a campaign rally, but this tongue-in-cheek phrase from the PASA panel session at this year’s CLASS conference captured a serious point: pension administration needs to be recognised, respected, and invested in.
Administration is sometimes still treated as the machinery that sits quietly in the background while the more glamorous elements of pensions (i.e. investments) take centre stage. Yet it is administration that turns scheme rules, legislation, and policy into something that actually works for members. And as the pensions landscape becomes increasingly complex, the demands on administrators are multiplying.
The PASA panel considered how standards and accreditation could help raise the profile and quality of administration, and the discussion came at an interesting time. DWP’s recent consultation on trust-based pension schemes specifically recognises the need to improve administration standards, together with wider measures to strengthen governance and oversight.
PASA’s standards already provide a robust framework covering areas such as reporting, documented procedures, change control, data quality, and staff development – accreditation provides independent assessment against those standards.
However, standards are only part of the story.
The panel also highlighted the changing regulatory and operational landscape. Consolidation in the private sector is creating larger schemes and administration operations, while pensions dashboards are shining an increasingly bright light on the quality of data.
Of course, bigger does not automatically mean better. Scale may bring opportunities, but it also introduces greater operational and systemic risk. That firmly makes administration a governance issue, not simply an operational one.
There was a strong practical perspective shared as well. For Surrey, changes to its organisational model meant looking closely at structure, responsibilities, technology, and customer service. Digital-first thinking is being deployed to support innovation, backed by better management information and a sharper focus on understanding the customer experience.
And that last point is critical: Are we measuring the right things?
Traditional KPIs and SLAs can tell us how quickly something was processed. But they don't necessarily tell us whether the member had a good experience, whether the process worked effectively, or whether the outcome was right.
Speed matters. But so does satisfaction.
The core message was that administration needs meaningful measures of success – not simply methods of survival.
This theme was particularly evident in Avon Pension Fund’s session, "Embracing change – from the side of the desk to programme management."
Avon’s starting point was challenging. In 2022, the administration team were dealing with the all-too-familiar recruitment challenges and case backlogs, along with rising demand, and a structure that was increasingly unsuitable for purpose.
Their response was not simply to ask the existing team to work harder. Instead, Avon fundamentally reconsidered its operating model, creating a structure built around four pillars: People, Service, Foundation, and Change. Each pillar encompassed different operational elements and frameworks where potential for improvement and efficiency had been identified.
That clear separation of change from BAU was key. As Avon demonstrated, strategy cannot merely sit alongside business as usual and hope for the best. The operating model is critical. When multiple projects are running concurrently, change requires real capacity, structure, and programme management.
It also needs people.
Stakeholder buy-in, internal communications, and clearly documented decisions formed vital parts of Avon’s approach. The aim was not just to introduce new technology, but to forge new ways of working and strengthen relationships both internally and externally.
Which brings us right back to one of the central questions posed by the panel: Is administration respected?
Perhaps part of the problem lies in the word itself. "Administration" arguably undersells what the role actually involves. Modern pension administration encompasses operations and service delivery, technology, data, finance, compliance, communication, problem-solving, and – increasingly – digital transformation and AI.
PASA’s accreditation framework recognises the importance of building high-performing administration teams, while its standards include specific requirements around induction, competency, and staff development. The framework focuses on creating better administrators and recognises administration as a viable long-term career choice; a vision shared by PASA’s Administration Careers & Development Working Group.
Modern pension administration is intellectually challenging. It requires highly adaptable skills. It offers opportunities to work across multiple disciplines. And there is something else that should not be overlooked: the social value. Pensions can be life-changing for members. Administrators support people through their entire pension journey and some of the most important financial decisions and events of their lives – it is almost literally a cradle-to-grave service.
There is an old joke that once you get into pensions, you can never leave – a little like the Hotel California. But perhaps that is because there is far more to discover than people realise.
The message from CLASS was therefore much bigger than simply "good administration." It was about recognising administration as a profession, investing in its people, embracing technology and change, and putting meaningful measures around quality and customer experience.
If the industry wants better governance, stronger data, higher standards, and better outcomes for members, administration needs to be placed firmly at the heart of that conversation.
So, Make Administration Great Again?
Maybe it isn't such a bad slogan after all.
Claire Hey is Heywood's Calculation Lead. She leads the team that bridges the gap between Heywood's Service Desk, calculation teams and customers, and she keeps track of new pensions legislation and changes, and their implications for Heywood's system and calculations.
Claire sits on the technical groups for the LGA and National Police Chiefs' Council, and is a member of the PASA Public Sector Working Group.