Pension schemes, third-party administrators and insurers should “urgently” modernise their admin infrastructure, Mantle has said, after a freedom of information request found a 33 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of complaints submitted to The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO).

The request showed the number of complaints to TPO had risen from 6,558 in 2023 to 8,709 in 2024, including 660 explicitly tied to administration issues, down slightly from 701 in 2023, which Mantle said underscored an industry struggling to meet growing member demands.

The firm said the sustained volume of administration complaints points to “persistent underlying inefficiencies” within schemes' operational systems.

The firm has dubbed this systemic challenge the "admin avalanche", citing a systemic backlog of member servicing issues stemming from outdated technology and a shrinking talent pool of pension administrators creating critical bottlenecks to member service quality.

Mantle also warned that as TPO complaints increase, overall service demand is rising, and manual operations cannot scale.

The firm noted that when going beyond the generalities of poor service due to inefficient systems, there are some rapidly emerging pinch points.

It offered the example of McCloud in the public sector, noting that systems providers have been playing catch up to deliver the required calculations.

This, it said, has resulted in delays to retirement estimates, payment of benefits and transfer value calculations.

This inability to calculate transfer values, Mantle said, is hitting some members with reports of legal action against schemes, as members can’t divorce with a transfer value calculation.

Additionally, the firm pointed out that dashboard requirements are also exposing some platforms where manual calculation of estimated retirement incomes is happening.

Therefore, it is suggested that upgrading the underlying administration to a “modern capable solution” will solve McCloud, dashboards, and a host of other problems.

Mantle managing director, James Whittingham, said the combination of ageing populations, complex benefits structures, and analogue systems is creating a “perfect storm”.

“This data reinforces what we hear every day from clients: the volume and complexity of member requests is climbing, while the ability to respond in a timely, accurate manner is becoming harder,” Whittingham said.

“Real-time, automated admin infrastructure is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity. Schemes pursuing consolidation or buyout need to show they can deliver seamless, high-quality member servicing.”

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