TCS Wins €10m Auto-Enrolment Pension Contract

I made a few interesting discoveries recently:
1. UNUCS (Brilliant comment, @ClubMan !) is mentioned in the Act, but I couldn't see an English version anywhere. It's simply "the Authority". Here is the link to the Act. If anyone discovers the full English version, please let me know.
2. From my reading of the Act, UNUCS cannot spend a penny without permission from the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. There is no indication that PER (using its short title) has agreed anything with DSP. On the contrary, straws in the wind suggest a tense relationship between the two Departments. For example, Minister Humphreys told the Dail and Seanad earlier this year that the Pensions Council recommended the rejection of my AE proposal. However, the PER representative did not attend any of the dozen or so Council meetings at which Minister Humphreys' request for an evaluation was discussed. Therefore, the representative from that Department played no part in the Pensions Council's decision to recommend the rejection of my proposal. That indicates to me that, while DSP might be quite happy to bring in an AE scheme that costs the country €2.2 billion a year more than it should, PER takes a different view.
 
AE is already heading to be a cross between the Children's Hospital and PPARS, it can be done at a reasonable cost but the probability is it wont be.
 
Towger said:
According to the Indo TCS are still only the preferred bidder. So in short nothing has progressed for months.
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The wording is indeed interesting. Normally when you get to preferred bidder stage, 2 things happen. There is negotiation with the preferred bidder on the contract, cost, clarification and assumptions. That could take a few months in my experience. There is also a period where the underbidders can appeal the award or seek a judicial review on the award and the process followed. From the sounds of it, those periods are ongoing.

Bigger concern I would have is that a State Agency (quango) is being set up and staffed from scratch to oversee a tender and contract that they has no input into or control over the decisions made. "There you go, get on with it now."
 
I know this will never happen, BUT it would be more economic (for the State and probably the members) to appoint one of the current insurance companies to run the AE system:
- they have the administrative systems already in place
- they have a range of fund options
- the State could negotiate a competitive charging structure (perhaps with more than one provider)
- it could be operational in months (not years as is still likely with the current proposal)
I fully understand that the civil service people appointed to establish the new AE system would never agree, despite the fact that they have ZERO experience in setting up such a structure from scratch. Despite the Minister’s various promises that the system would be up and running before the end of 2024, this is unlikely to come to fruition for another 2 or 3 years (no administration managers appointed, no investment managers appointed etc etc).
This is akin to the Leinster House bike shelter in terms of planning.
 
Conan said:
I know this will never happen, BUT it would be more economic (for the State and probably the members) to appoint one of the current insurance companies to run the AE system:
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With the Revenue doing the collecting (and enforcement) of the money. While the government don't like to use the analogy, it is the same as collecting another tax on top of IT, PRSI, USC and LPT. With the current setup there is huge duplication of Backroom staff, Help Desks, IT systems, enforcement and employers having the extra work dealing with another organisation.
Just think of it, an extra team of people to handle resetting forgotten passwords for yet another system, and that is only the start. We have not even touched on how enforcement will work. What happens if an employer does not pay over pension contributions? Revenue already have teams in place to monitor, audit and raid delinquent employers.
 
I agree with many of @Colm Fagan ‘s criticisms of AE.

It’s a massive shame there was zero debate on some of the operational parts of it though. Mandating a third-party provider to collect AE contributions was beyond incomprehensible given that Revenue already exists to collect money from every payroll in the land. Will add hugely to cost and delay.

People forget how ruthlessly efficient Revenue were ten years ago at setting up LPT (a brand new tax) with a short timescale.

Irish Water attempted something similar at the same time with water charges. They had zero experience in collecting money and had a massive reliance on third-party providers. It all collapsed in the most farcical manner imaginable.
 
I believe the charges the government propose to levy on the funds make this unattractive to the insurance companies.
 
TCS and Diligenta, quite possibly the worst companies to deal with. The UK arm of my company has outsourced the csd function to them, shocking.
How to run a company into the ground.
I am sure this will be a disaster!
 
Sarah Ryan said:
TCS and Diligenta, quite possibly the worst companies to deal with. The UK arm of my company has outsourced the csd function to them, shocking.
How to run a company into the ground.
I am sure this will be a disaster!
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I suspect the UK's NEST had a similar opinion. In fact they tried to get rid of TCS, and switched provider, but had go back cap-in-hand to them.

Those in power here may see this as good reason to go with TCS as well, given the system is a 'copy and paste' to a large extent of the UK approach, however it also ultimately means we'll end up with the same problem NEST has, a monopoly provider. Guess who'll end up footing those costs?

https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/22/tcs_pensions_deal/
 
I have some comments and queries.

(1) UNUCS - yet another new State agency, we have so many


(2) is this how it will work?

Thousands of employers will send contributions to UNUCS.

UNUCS will use software sold by TCS

UNUCS will provide access to funds / fund managers

Will UNUCS choose one single fund manager?

Or will UNUCS allow several fund managers to offer their funds?

Will the possible funds be pre-existing funds, or will the fund manager create new funds specifically for Irish AE?
 
Correct, there is a hugh over lap in the collection of money with what Revenue already do. But for political and DSP reasons a 3rd party will be used.

There will be (supposed to be) 4 fund Pension Providers, each offering 4 funds. At the moment it looks like none are interested in offering their services. There is nothing to say they cannot use preexisting funds.
 
So possibly up to 16 funds on the menu.

There will be an appetite for both an S&P500 index tracking fund, and a world equity index tracking fund.
 
My understanding is that there will only be four funds to choose from. The client will get a blended return from the four providers as opposed to selecting a provider
 
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