UK – The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the body charged with cleaning up the UK’s atomic energy industry, has tendered for third-party pensions administration services for the proposed Nuclear Decommissioning Industry-wide Pension Schemes (or IWS).

The IWS will be a new trust based multi-employer pension scheme providing defined benefit for active members who will join from existing employers within the nuclear decommissioning industry.

It will have up to 15,000 active members once fully established, although initial numbers are likely to be around 1,000.

The NDA will shortlist around five operators for the three-year contract and will look for the “most economically advantageous” tender. The deadline for responses is February 19.

The contract is subject to approval by the IWS Trustees once they are in place, which is expected to be in June.

At the end of December the NDA announced it had awarded Deloitte Total Rewards and Benefits a contract to provide actuarial consultancy advice for the new schemes.

On December 9 the NDA launched a three-month consultation on the proposed industry-wide fund.

"The NDA understands just how important pension provision is to employees across the nuclear decommissioning industry,” said NDA pensions head Peter Vaughan.