UK – Aon Consulting, the actuarial, benefits and human resources consultancy firm, has won the contract to provide pensions administration services to the £2.8bn (€4.5bn) Scottishpower pension fund, Scotland’s largest private sector scheme with over 29,000 members.

Aon says the move is in line with the trend in recent years for large pension schemes to outsource their administration.

The contract, which is for five years and will be run out of Aon’s Glasgow office, comes as a result of an in-depth review by Scottishpower of its pension administration arrangements and includes the Southern Water and Manweb schemes. The review sought to find out if it outsourcing administration was a viable cost effective solution to its former in-house set up.

Under the terms of the contract, 13 of Scottishpower’s in-house staff will transfer to Aon’s Glasgow office.

Scottishpower’s pension fund is externally managed by a number of leading investment houses, including Barclays Global Investors, Capital International, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Legal & General and Schroders.

Aon Consulting’s Bristol office has also won the mandate to provide full service administration, actuarial and consultancy services to the £4m Poole Harbour Commissioners pension scheme, following on from a similar appointment earlier this year by the Bristol Port Company.