Enhancing administration reporting - insights and best practice
As master trust arrangements continue to evolve, the quality and clarity of administration reporting provided to trustee boards plays an increasingly critical role in supporting effective governance and member outcomes.
Following an informal comparison of administration reports across a range of master trusts, we are sharing our reflections on good practice (the standards TPR would generally expect to see in place), emerging best practice (examples of particularly effective or innovative approaches), and identifying areas where reporting can improve trustee oversight.
Below, we share some of our key observations and practical takeaways that may help schemes enhance and modernise the effectiveness of their reporting.
Start with the essentials
Keep it concise: Remove unnecessary branding, duplication, and low-value content that cause the reports to be lengthy. Trustees and administrators should regularly ask themselves what’s the purpose and value of the data on each page.
Lead with a dashboard: Clear, upfront summary of key risks, priorities, and performance, including comparisons with previous reporting. Clearly flag exceptions or deteriorating trends.
Administration performance
Monitoring administration performance should extend beyond reviewing service level agreements (SLAs). This is because performance issues can build up and processes can work inefficiently even whilst SLAs are met.
Good practice reporting also includes:
- reporting on key performance indicators and service quality metrics
- the age of the oldest outstanding activity for each administrative process (even where overall performance of the activity was within SLA)
- the volume of pending or outstanding activity for each administrative process (broken down into workable and non-workable)
- commentary on missed SLAs including explanation of cause, expectations about performance and when appropriate including a “road to green” (with owner, actions, timeline, impact)
- quality assurance findings and progress against resulting actions
It is good practice for trustees to analyse the activity that is being conducted outside of SLA targets, even when the overall performance is within tolerance levels. This is where the trustees’ oversight role can really add value by providing challenge and considering any inefficiencies or necessary improvements. Where SLAs are consistently met, trustees may want to consider whether SLAs are set at appropriate levels and reflect the desired member experience.
It is best practice to report on both:
- end-to-end processing times – reflecting the overall member journey; and
- stopped clock processing times – reflecting internal operational performance to help identify areas for improvement
Integrating SLA performance reporting with complaints analysis, customer feedback, external reviews, and social media monitoring can provide a more rounded insight into the member experience and trend identification.
Member contact and digital platforms
To better understand the member experience, it is good practice to monitor metrics on all communication channels for example:
- email volume received, including categories showing reasons for contact, response times and outstanding queries
- call volumes, reasons for contact, calls answered, speed to answer, call duration and first-time contact resolution rates
- Member satisfaction scores split by channel (web, calls, and email)
- volumes of vulnerable members identified and any support provided.
It is best practice to also report on digital platform usage, including:
- website visits
- app downloads;
- portal and app logins
- online member journeys started and completed;
- volume of online claims
- beneficiary updates
- system availability and service performance; and
- any issues affecting the member experience such as outages or slow response times
Integrated monitoring
Each scheme will structure their reporting and oversight differently so some of the areas outlined below may be covered elsewhere in greater detail. However, including them within the board pack for whichever group oversees administration helps ensure administrative, financial compliance, and operational risks are considered in the round. Whether as a high-level summary or detailed update, this supports effective oversight and decision-making. It enables trustees to maintain comprehensive oversight across the full administration landscape and the formation of a holistic, transparent, and joined-up view of scheme administration performance and governance.
Financial processing:
- Suspense account balances, including volumes and ageing.
- Unit reconciliations and investment variances.
Compliance:
- Incidents, compliance breaches and statutory disclosures (including confirmation that none have occurred in the reporting period).
- Updates on any audit activity that has taken place in the reporting period or is upcoming in the next reporting period including details of actions arising.
- Confirm whether statutory communications have been issued on time, together with related volumes.
Fraud:
- Volumes, financial impact, any reimbursements or compensation paid, preventative measures and control improvements.
Resilience:
- Third-party business continuity planning and testing outcomes and learnings.
- Administration resourcing visibility and capacity risks.
Continuous improvement:
- Updates on process improvements and administration projects.
- Data scores including updates on any data improvement initiatives.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to administration reporting, the exercise highlighted a clear direction of travel: more focused, data-driven, and insight-led reporting that supports effective trustee decision-making and helps to identify emerging risks sooner. Trustees should report in a way that is proportionate to their scheme's size, complexity and risk profile, with reference to TPR’s Administration of a pension scheme guidance.
