The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) will be providing in-house services to its members from 2014 and has awarded a contract to a specialist systems provider.

The PPF awarded the 10 year pensions administration and payroll software support contract to Civica, which provides services to other large pension schemes in the country.

Civica's software and support services will be used by PPF when it starts to provide new in-house services to its hundreds of thousands of members from 2014.

Sara Protheroe, PPF director of customer experience, said: "This is a major milestone for what is a very important project aimed at making sure we continue to put our customers at the heart of everything we do.

"We are confident Civica will be a great partner as we move forward with our plans and, with its support, we will continue to provide excellent customer service to our members while having the greater control and flexibility that we are looking for."

In March 2012 the PPF said it will be bringing its member administration services in-house, because it felt that it was "mature enough" as an organisation to bring these services in-house.

Civica managing director Bill Loughrey said: "In today's turbulent economic climate, the safeguarding of people's pensions is more important than ever. We're delighted to be supporting PPF with our Universal Pension Management system, helping to ensure that their customers receive the best possible service around their pension schemes."

First published 13.05.2013

monique_simpson@wilmington.co.uk