Stakeholder Pension Scheme for the UK Armed Forces
The Ministry of Defence is seeking a Stakeholder Pension Contractor who will provide a designated pension scheme for relevant employees of the MOD, for active pension scheme members and dependants.
United Kingdom-Glasgow: Pension services
2017/S 143-294594
Contract notice
Services
Directive 2014/24/EU
Section I: Contracting authority
I.1)Name and addresses
Room 2.1.02, Level 2, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street
Glasgow
G2 8EX
United Kingdom
Contact person: K Nicholson
Telephone: +44 1412242716
E-mail: DefComrclCC-HOCS1b1@mod.uk
NUTS code: UKInternet address(es):Main address: www.contracts.mod.uk
I.2)Joint procurement
I.3)Communication
I.4)Type of the contracting authority
I.5)Main activity
Section II: Object
II.1.1)Title:
Provision Of A Stakeholder Pension Scheme for the UK Armed Forces.
II.1.2)Main CPV code
II.1.3)Type of contract
II.1.4)Short description:
Provision Of A Stakeholder Pension Scheme for the UK Armed Forces.
II.1.5)Estimated total value
II.1.6)Information about lots
II.2.3)Place of performance
United Kingdom.
II.2.4)Description of the procurement:
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is seeking a Stakeholder Pension Contractor who will provide a designated pension scheme for relevant employees of the MOD, for active pension scheme members and dependants. The Contractor shall provide the Stakeholder pension facility from 1.4.2018 to 31.3.2021, with an option to extend for a further period of up to 2 years. The MOD is not seeking to provide a publicly cooperate benefit to Service Personnel, but to facilitate the availability of Stakeholder Pensions into which Service Personnel would pay on a voluntary basis.
The Contractor shall operate MOD’s designated Stakeholder Pension Scheme, and provide employees who choose to invest in the scheme with:
a. A comprehensive and flexible range of investment options.
b. An investment update shall be received by the member every 3 months either by email or post, whichever is the preferred member option.
c. The ability to alter the amount of their contributions at monthly intervals and to stop contributions at any time. Such requests shall come into effect within 14 days of the request being made by the member; and
d. a dedicated service team for the handling of applications/queries/ complaints, of which shall be provided Monday — Friday between the hours of 9:00 to 17:00 via telephone and email.
— All telephone and email communication received from the member shall be answered within 3 working days.
— All complaints received from the member shall be answered within 5 working days
The MOD will not make employer contributions or make payments to the Contractor for running the scheme. All costs are to be met from the premiums paid by members.
Contributions will be collected on a monthly basis. Contributions data shall be passed to the contractor electronically. The payment of Stakeholder pension contributions shall be of fixed monthly amounts of no less than 20 GBP, through payroll deduction, by the 19th of the following month, for which no administrative charge will be made.
The Contractor shall be given access to the relevant groups of employees and active pension scheme members for the purposes of advertising the scheme. The relevant groups of employees are based at centres across the UK, including Northern Ireland, and those based overseas, which consist of all regular service members, and Reservists.
MOD shall advertise the Stakeholder Pension Scheme to all employees through MOD channels, including internal MOD publications/instructions and MOD websites.
— The Contractor shall be required to promote the facility through its own advertising channels.
— The Contractor shall allow MOD to reproduce its Stakeholder advertising material without charge.
— The Contractor shall be required to provide statistical and other Management Information (MI) to MOD. Information shall be provided on a monthly basis and shall include:
— Product Performance,
— Complaints,
— Benchmarking.
This will enable the MOD to assess, for example, the performance of all products supplied under the arrangement, customer service levels and marketing strategy.
The Contractor shall not use the terms ‘approved by MOD’, ‘sponsored by MOD’ or ‘endorsed by MOD’ in any marketing or promotional literature associated with any products or services. The Contractor shall be responsible for the production and distribution of all marketing literature.
The Contractor shall clearly state in all marketing and promotional literature that members of the Armed Forces are under no obligation to purchase any products and services offered by the Contractor.
Should the MOD withdraw Stakeholder designation or the Stakeholder Pension Scheme be withdrawn from the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority’s list of registered schemes, relevant employees may opt to maintain payroll deductions into a suitable pension arrangement with the Contractor.
II.2.5)Award criteria
II.2.7)Duration of the contract, framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system
Depending on the take up of the option years, it will be in 2021 — 2023.
II.2.9)Information about the limits on the number of candidates to be invited
II.2.10)Information about variants
II.2.11)Information about options
Any contract resulting from this advert will be for an initial period of 36 months, with the Authority having the right to extend up to 24 months.
II.2.13)Information about European Union funds
II.2.14)Additional information
The pay of Reserve Forces can be irregular, where employees have insufficient earnings, after deductions, to make the full contributions, no deduction is to be made. As employees are unable to guarantee to make monthly contributions into their stakeholder pensions, the Contractor shall therefore provide the necessary support to ensure the member’s account continues to remain open.
Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1.1)Type of procedure
IV.1.8)Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
IV.2.2)Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate
IV.2.3)Estimated date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates
IV.2.4)Languages in which tenders or requests to participate may be submitted:
IV.2.6)Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1)Information about recurrence
VI.2)Information about electronic workflows
VI.3)Additional information:
The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement. The Authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. If any contract documents are accompanied by instructions on safeguarding classified information (e.g. a Security Aspects Letter), the Authority reserves the right to amend the terms of these instructions to reflect any changes in national law or government policy, whether in respect of the applicable protective marking scheme, specific protective markings given, the aspects to which any protective marking applies, or otherwise. The link below to the Gov.uk website provides information on the Government Security Classification.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-security-classifications
Advertising Regime OJEU: This contract opportunity is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), the MoD Defence Contracts Bulletin and www.contracts.mod.uk
Suppliers must read through this set of instructions and follow the process to respond to this opportunity.
The information and/or documents for this opportunity are available on http://www.contracts.mod.uk.
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Suppliers must log in, go to your Response Manager and add the following Access Code: 4MQY46W7H2.
Please ensure you follow any instruction provided to you here.
The deadline for submitting your response(s) is detailed within this contract notice, you will also have visibility of the deadline date, once you have added the Access code via DCO as the opening and closing date is visible within the opportunity.
Please ensure that you allow yourself plenty of time when responding to this opportunity prior to the closing date and time, especially if you have been asked to upload documents.
If you experience any difficulties please refer to the online Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) or the User Guides or contact the MOD DCO Helpdesk by emailing support@contracts.mod.uk or Telephone 0800 282 324.
GO Reference: GO-2017725-DCB-10701320.
VI.4.1)Review body
Room 2.1.02, Level 2, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street
Glasgow
G2 8EX
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 1412242716
E-mail: DefComrclCC-HOCS1b1@mod.uk
VI.4.2)Body responsible for mediation procedures
Room 2.1.02, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street
Glasgow
G2 8EX
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 1412242716
E-mail: DefComrclCC-HOCS1b1@mod.uk
VI.4.4)Service from which information about the review procedure may be obtained
Room 2.1.02, Level 2, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street
Glasgow
G2 8EX
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 1412242716
E-mail: DefComrclCC-HOCS1b1@mod.uk
VI.5)Date of dispatch of this notice: