Technology: The hidden theme of the Enrolled Actuaries Conference  

Mantle recently sponsored and exhibited virtually at the CCA’s Enrolled Actuaries Conference. Mantle’s Actuarial Solutions Lead, Matthew Leathem explores how the hidden theme of technology is shaping the future of pensions and empowering actuarial professionals to meet today’s complex challenges head-on. 

If you were (virtually) at the 2025 Enrolled Actuaries Conference, you’ll know the agenda was packed. We dived into the usual complexities: regulatory changes, economic forecasts, and the demographic shifts reshaping our world. All essential stuff. But like many conferences, it wasn’t just what was explicitly on the agenda that caught our attention. There was an underlying theme beneath the main discussions. This was the ever-growing role of technology in everything we do in pensions. 

Even the fact we were all tuning in online says something. Looking deeper, however, many sessions touched on how tech is helping us tackle the big challenges. Take the discussions around “megatrends,” things like aging populations and tricky economic outlooks. How do plans even begin to navigate this? A big part of the answer lies in better risk analysis. Good technology platforms are now giving actuaries and plan sponsors the tools to really model different scenarios and stress-test their plans. This isn’t just number-crunching; it’s about getting clearer insights for better decisions. 

This power also feeds directly into smarter plan design. We heard about initiatives like corporate pension revitalisation, aiming for new and more robust retirement solutions. Technology is what allows us to design, model, and then actually administer these more innovative or tailored plans without everything grinding to a halt. 

Day-to-day efficiency with pension management software 

Then there’s the day-to-day. Everyone’s looking for greater efficiency and solid value for money. Modern pension management software is a game-changer here. It helps streamline so many actuarial and admin tasks, automating routine work and making sure data is exactly right. This isn’t just about saving a bit of cash. It frees up skilled people to focus on the stuff that really needs their brainpower. And a really important point is that this kind of tech makes top-notch tools and administration more accessible for everyone, including smaller plans and sponsors. It’s helping to level the playing field. We even see areas like AI starting to offer a helping hand in sifting through information to find useful patterns. 

Enhancing member engagement through digital tools 

And what about the participants? At the end of the day, it’s all for them. Technology is making a massive difference in how members see engage and understand their own benefits. Think clear online portals, tools that let them see projections, and just better, more straightforward digital communication. This member-first approach, supported by intuitive pension software, It all helps people individuals get to grips with their pension and appreciate why it’s valuable.  

Here at Mantle, this is what we’re all about. We build the kind of tech that helps pension plans get these things right: robust risk management, support for innovative plans, efficient administration, and clear member engagement. It was our second year at the Enrolled Actuaries Conference, and both times it’s given us plenty to think about. This year really hammered home how technology, even when it’s not the headline act, is quietly powering the way forward for pensions. 

The world of pensions is complex, but it’s good to know we’ve got increasingly smart technology in our corner. If you’d like to find out more about how Mantle’s pension software solutions can help streamline your operations, support innovative planning, and drive better outcomes, get in touch with us today. Email us at enquiries@mantleservices.com  

Matthew Leathem

Actuarial Solutions Lead

Blog

21 May 2025

When pension reform backfires, everyone pays the price. The McCloud remedy, initially designed to reduce public sector pension costs, has instead created an administrative nightmare that’s driving up expenses and leaving members frustrated. What started as a well-intentioned cost-saving measure has morphed into a perfect storm of technical limitations, staffing challenges, and member confusion. Traditional pension management platforms simply weren’t built to handle these dual calculations, creating a cascade of costly problems. Mantle’s Graeme Riddoch discusses the true impact of McCloud on pension schemes and those who depend on them.

What is the McCloud Remedy?

What most people know about the McCloud remedy is that it’s a Public Sector Defined Benefits (DB) Pensions issue that impacts some members. At its heart were reforms designed to curb the cost of Public Sector Pensions by changing accrual to Career Average.  This generally produces lower benefits than Final Salary, thus saving money.

Ultimately, a judge found the changes to be discriminatory and the upshot in simple terms is that both career average and final salary calculations need to be run. LGPS members are presented with “the better of” for their circumstances. Local Government members get both calculations and choose.

So what started out as an exercise designed to reduce costs has had the opposite effect.

What is the impact of the McCloud remedy?

One of the biggest problems is having to run both career average and final salary calculations. The platforms running the schemes were set up for final salary calculations, not career average. Some legacy platforms struggle to fully automate one set of calculations never mind both!

A huge amount of money is therefore being burnt just in this area. We recently came across one large scheme having to run career average calculations on spreadsheets and then manually merge the results with the Final Salary calculations. The net effect was to pretty much double the number of staff required to support the scheme, with the accompanying cost.

Consider serving data to Pensions Dashboards, some platforms struggle with one ERI calculation, never mind two.

The other real-world impact of McCloud is on members. If you can’t automate calculations then getting estimates of benefits is a long painful process. Also, forget member self-serve.

Communication is a real issue, just go on the LGPS website and look at how much copy is dedicated to trying to explain things to members. DB pensions are complicated enough to start with!

There are even more fundamental consequences. The BBC ran a story recently about people unable to get a divorce. The barrier being an inability of the actuary to value the benefits to allow for a pension sharing order.

The problems of a large LGPS fund in the Midlands are well documented with Martin Lewis wading in. The fund in question was struggling so badly that some members hadn’t received their pension 5 months after retirement.

So what’s the remedy? Well, the technology underpinning many schemes isn’t up to the job. To be fair the platforms were never designed to run parallel calculations. Few are capable of calculating Transfer Values, on one basis, never mind two.

Better is possible however. Mantle’s pension management platform runs both career average and final salary in real time. It also supports dual opposite sex records for GMP as well as live transfer values, refreshed daily.

And the cost? Well for one scheme we estimated a 50% reduction in staff costs and a transformation in terms of the service to the member. That’s the real cost of McCloud!

How Mantle’s Pension Management Platform can help.

By upgrading to modern pension management technology platforms designed to handle dual calculations effortlessly, schemes can dramatically reduce operational costs while delivering superior service to members.

Explore how Mantle’s real-time calculation capabilities can transform your scheme administration, cut costs by up to 50%, and give your members the responsive service they deserve. Contact us today at enquiries@mantleservices.com to learn how we can help you navigate the McCloud challenge more efficiently.

Graeme Riddoch

Chief Revenue Officer

Blog

12 Mar 2025