UK - The Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority is tendering for a five year "framework agreement" for the provision of a firefighters' pension scheme system.

The tender is for a system that can "calculate all pension benefits under the rules of the Firefighters' Pension Scheme 1992, the Firefighters' Scheme 2006 and Compensation Scheme for Firefighters," the authority said.

The system also needs to record the details of the scheme's 1,800 contributors and their dependants, and the 2,300 pensioners, maintain all data, update records, generate report and accept uploaded data from the corporate human resources system. 

Geoff Haslam, occupational health and attendance manager at the authority, explains that due to new government regulations, the authority needs a system to process the pension scheme.

"Up to the current time we've been able to work with a computer system that we drew up in-house in line with our HR-system.

"Legislation has changed the scheme for current members and introduced a brand new set of rules for new members and unfortunately we are in the situation that our existing HR-system which pensions was part of will no longer be able to service that," says Haslam.

"It's more a lack of system rather than a lack of expertise," he added.

He expects that IT-companies specialising in local government pensions schemes systems will apply.

The authority, which is not being advised in this mandate, said that the system is "initially required by Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, but may be extended on agreement to other fire and rescue service in the North West of England."

The time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate is October 20; "the most economical advantageous tender" will be awarded the authority said.

Topics