B._DRAFT_RKSA_Statement_of_Objectives_MQ.pdf

[Type here]

June 28, 2018

Recordkeeping Services Acquisition Statement of Objectives

Table of Contents

1. Purpose

2. Background

3. Scope of Services

Descriptions of In-Scope Services

A. Defined Contribution Services Delivery

1. Participant Services

2. Administrative Services

3. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance Services

B. Security and Information Technology

C. Program Management and Quality

D. Transition Services

Descriptions of Out-of-Scope Services

A. Defined Contribution Services Delivery

1. Participant Services

2. Administrative Services

3. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance Services

4. Objectives

Defined Contribution Services Delivery

A. Participant Services

B. Administrative Services

C. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance Services

Security and Information Technology

Program Management and Quality

Transition Services

5. Key Constraints

6. Indicative Metrics and Plans

Defined Contribution Services Delivery

A. Participant Services

B. Administrative Services

C. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance

Security and Information Technology

Program Management and Quality

Transition Services

1. Purpose

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) is seeking qualified contractors to support

Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) Recordkeeping and to provide defined contribution managed services that will operate and manage the associated people, processes, and systems required to deliver TSP retirement services as defined in the Recordkeeping Statement of Objectives (SOO).

This Statement of Objectives (SOO) describes FRTIB’s high level objectives, constraints, and indicative metrics for acquiring the Recordkeeping Services, as well as, background and scope information relevant to the objectives. The purpose of the SOO is to aid the service provider in developing response(s) to requests for qualifications in the Minimum Qualification process and to develop a Performance Work Statement (PWS) in the Solicitation Phase.

2. Background

The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP or Plan) is a defined contribution retirement savings and investment plan for Federal employees and members of the uniformed services. It was authorized by the United States Congress in the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Act of 1986 (FERSA). The TSP provides Federal employees and members of the uniformed services with a savings and tax benefit similar to what many private sector employers offer their employees under 401(k) plans.

The TSP serves more than 5 million active and retired participants and beneficiaries (estimated total of 8.9 million accounts including zero balance and inactive accounts as of February 2018) and will grow significantly over the next 5 years with the creation of the Blended Retirement system which has been implemented in 2018.

The TSP is comprised of the following components:

Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) Employees

Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) Employees

Members of the Uniformed Services

Members of the Uniformed Services under the Blended Retirement Systems as of 2018

Beneficiary Participants

The FRTIB mission is to “Administer the TSP solely in the interest of Participants and Beneficiaries”.

The FRTIB is proceeding with securing a provider to manage Recordkeeping Services for the TSP in order to provide an enhanced participant experience and address key issues identified in the FRTIB

2017-2021 Strategic Plan published September 2016, including:

An inflexible legacy IT architecture

Increasing cybersecurity threats

Support for Blended Retirement

Increased audit activity

The Plan summary is available at https://www.tsp.gov/PDF/formspubs/tspbk08.pdf and additional information is available at https://www.frtib.gov/ReadingRoom/index.html.

Additional information is available in the Solicitation Library on FBO.

3. Scope of Services

The following chart and Descriptions of Services provide a high level overview of the scope of services for the Recordkeeping Services Acquisition (RKSA) SOO. The in-scope services are provided by the service provider and the out-of-scope services are provided by retained FRTIB functions as well as other third party entities. It is imperative that all the services together (in-scope and out-of-scope) are delivered to the TSP participants and their beneficiaries in a seamless and unified manner to enhance their experience using TSP services.

Figure 1 - RKSA Scope of Services

The RKSA Scope of Services serves as the representative business service model of the TSP operations and provides a standard taxonomy of services that conforms to the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in the RFP. The Defined Contribution Services Delivery in the above RKSA Scope of

Services figure is based on TSP operations and the Defined Contribution Plan (DCP) services industry framework, developed by the Investment Company Institute (ICI).

Descriptions of In-Scope Services

The following services are considered in-scope for this procurement except in so far as listed in Section 3.2.

A. Defined Contribution Services Delivery

1. Participant Services

Participant Correspondence – Includes contact centers, voice-response systems, Web access. Excludes congressional inquiries and correspondence regarding decisions for which the FRTIB is required by law to retain final authority. Includes plan website content under contractor control and any participant correspondence.

Participant Financial Advice – Advises participants to drive better and smarter financial decisions and achieve their targeted retirement outcomes.

Loan Processing – Processes loans and administrative services associated with loans.

Mutual Fund Window – Provides access to a mutual fund window.

2. Administrative Services

Recordkeeping – Includes maintaining Plan records; payroll processing; processing participants’ investment elections, contributions, and distributions; employing agency support, and issuing account statements to participants.

Transaction Processing – Includes the processing of participant decisions noted under

Recordkeeping.

3. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance Services

Plan Accounting Services – Plan Accounting services for The TSP and providing Plan

Accounting data to FRTIB Agency accounting systems.

Audit Support Services – Audit support services.

Legal Processing – Includes processing for death cases, domestic relations court orders, tax levies, powers of attorney, etc.

B. Security and Information Technology

Security – The delivery of secure services.

Information Technology – The systems and technology required to deliver the services.

C. Program Management and Quality

Program Management – The management and monitoring of all resources required to deliver the services.

Quality Management – Methods that assure meeting the performance requirements of the contract.

D. Transition Services

Transition Services – The successful conversion from the current TSP Recordkeeping environment to the new TSP Recordkeeping environment.

Descriptions of Out-of-Scope Services

The following services are considered out-of-scope for this procurement:

A. Defined Contribution Services Delivery

1. Participant Services

Participant Communication Design – Providing the branding, look and feel, voice and tone for the TSP.

Agency Outreach & TSP Training - Includes communication, education, and overall awareness training for payroll offices, benefits officers, and employing agency employees.

Investment Management - Offered through a variety of professionally managed investment options. (Note: Asset management services will be performed by a third party other than the RKSA service provider and such automation appropriately facilitates those processes deemed inherently governmental which will be performed by FRTIB agency personnel.)

Annuity Services - Includes offering annuities to satisfy annuity distribution options.

2. Administrative Services

Trustee Services (Custodial Bank) - Provide the safe holding of the Plan’s assets in a trust.

3. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance Services

Plan Document Services - The Plan document details the benefits offered to participants and provides guidelines for the Plan administrator in decision-making regarding Plan operations.

Consulting - Includes providing assistance to FRTIB in selecting the investments offered to participants.

Legal Advice - Includes advice regarding compliance with legal requirements and second level review of benefits.

Plan Amendments - Development and authorization of Plan changes.

Agency Accounting Services – Includes cash management and investment management services and Agency accounting services.

4. Objectives The objectives are high level outcomes for the delivery of recordkeeping services that represent TSP priorities. They are intended to provide latitude for the development of responses to pre-solicitation and solicitation requests without being overly prescriptive or presumptuous. In this way, the Agency believes that qualified service providers will be able to leverage their know-how and experience to propose the best possible solutions without being unnecessarily encumbered by FRTIB’s current recordkeeping environment. Request for Proposal (RFP) respondents will be required to propose a

Performance Work Statement (PWS) for their proposed solution.

The FRTIB is seeking qualified contractors to support TSP Recordkeeping and to provide defined contribution managed services that will operate and manage the associated people, processes, and systems required to deliver TSP retirement services as defined in Section 3 – Scope of Services.

Defined Contribution Services Delivery

A. Participant Services

FRTIB is seeking to provide participants and beneficiaries with personalized services that provide seamless support regardless of their preferred mode of access, e.g. web, voice, chat, social, mobile. Objectives include:

Improve retirement outcomes by providing participants and beneficiaries with superior service at the lowest reasonable cost, and to continue to apply technology, industry best practices, and economies of scale to improve service and reduce the cost per participant and to pass any savings back to the participants.

Supporting participant inquiries and processing requests through an integrated multichannel contact center.

Delivering a flexible, consultative, participant-centric service that supports predictive next best actions for the participant.

Regularly and proactively educating participants to drive better and smarter financial decisions to achieve their targeted retirement outcomes.

Managing participant interactions and enabling a seamless and personalized participant experience based on their preferred mode of access.

Providing a seamless and structured management capability for escalating cases to FRTIB for issue or decisional resolution.

Providing FRTIB with a transparent end-to-end view of all participant plan level operations/transactions.

Achieving high participant satisfaction.

Providing access to a mutual fund window.

B. Administrative Services

FRTIB is seeking administrative services that provide highly reliable and responsive transactional integrity. Objectives include:

Maintaining and updating Plan records.

Processing employing agencies’ payroll data.

Processing participants’ transactions.

Issuing account statements to participants.

Processing forfeitures, other exceptions, and error correction.

C. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance Services

FRTIB is seeking services that meet the regulatory and compliance requirements of the TSP.

Objectives include:

Administering legal and death case processing.

Providing accounting services, including reconciliation, for participant recordkeeping and supporting agency accounting needs.

Providing information necessary to reconcile recordkeeping information daily among multiple external systems, including U.S. Treasury and FRTIB Agency Accounting.

Enabling rapid integration and implementation of statutory and regulatory changes and new

FRTIB guidance.

Providing responsive and thorough audit support.

Security and Information Technology

FRTIB is seeking secure services supported by a reliable and scalable infrastructure. Objectives include:

Protecting participant’s Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and the integrity of all transactions.

Providing secure recordkeeping services.

Identifying and resolving fraud.

Providing scalable and highly reliable recordkeeping services and leveraging modern technologies to improve these capabilities.

Providing global recordkeeping service delivery.

Program Management and Quality

FRTIB is seeking program management and quality services that support the achievement of highly reliable ongoing operational services. The objectives include:

Establishing and maintaining a successful working relationship based on well-defined governance and fully transparent reporting.

Monitoring and reporting performance and taking appropriate remedial action when necessary.

Responding proactively to meet changing demands without service disruption.

Continuously improving the delivery of services.

Minimizing the number of processing errors.

Providing innovative services based on state of the art industry capability.

Providing business continuity for RKSA services.

Providing data access for individual recordkeeping data and aggregation through predefined and ad hoc reporting.

Obtain and ensure ongoing, defined contribution deferred compensation industry, market-based tiered pricing over the duration of a long-term contract period of performance by using a structured assessment process, such as an independent benchmarking study.

Transition Services

FRTIB is seeking transition services that support the achievement of a successful conversion within a reasonable amount of time. The objectives include:

Facilitating a reliable transition with a minimal blackout period while retaining the confidence and trust of participants and stakeholder.

Working collaboratively with the incumbent contractors to ensure a smooth and complete transition, including knowledge transfer.

Assuming full contract responsibility as a result of meeting the acceptance criteria.

5. Key Constraints The following key constraints apply to delivering in-scope recordkeeping services to meet the previously stated objectives. These key constraints are provided to assist the Offeror to prepare its response. The RFP Solicitation Library will provide additional detail regarding notable FRTIB policies and procedures that comply with statutes and regulations through narrative documents. A high level summary of these documents are provided for this Minimum Qualification in the document labeled

“TSP Operational Consideration.”

All provider service delivery facilities, data storage, and personnel (including data administrators) shall be located within the U.S. and its territories.

The TSP is governed by FERSA as opposed to Employee Retirement Income Security Act

(ERISA).

Plan changes and implementation dates may be mandated by statute.

Services can be automated only if they comply with FERSA and the Code of Federal

Regulations (CFR).

The FRTIB and TSP are highly visible and subject to regulatory changes from other federal entities that may not impact other defined contribution plans.

The service provider shall comply with Federal Information Security Modernization Act

(FISMA) 2014 and National Institute Standards of Technology (NIST) including Privacy Act and Federal Records Act or their equivalents.

FRTIB does not have authority over federal government agency payroll offices and are not coordinated via a centralized human resources authority.

Education that can be construed as advice is subject to enforceable fiduciary standards.

The TSP is subject to substantial, ongoing audits and regulatory oversight and involvement.

Impact on or involvement of Vendor(s) may be substantial. The service provider shall participate in audits of TSP services performed by Employee Benefits Security Administration

(EBSA)/Department of Labor, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Financial Statement Auditor, etc.

The service provider shall interface to U.S. Treasury and FRTIB accounting systems.

The U.S. Treasury provides disbursement services on behalf of the TSP. Only authorized

FRTIB personnel can move funds in and out of the TSP account maintained by the U.S.

Treasury.

The service provider shall provide information on aggregate participant transactions by investment fund and transaction type in required formats through automated delivery to enable FRTIB to:

Manage multiple intraday transaction flows (via pre-notification processes) with investment managers and the U.S. Treasury, and

Calculate net asset value on a daily basis which are communicated to Recordkeeper.

FRTIB will retain Plan data ownership and rights.

Indicative data submitted by federal government agency payroll does not include certain common data elements (e.g. marital status, deferral rate, gender, etc.).

The service provider shall work with current state of data quality.

TSP documents shall be retained for 65 years.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provisions will be applicable and are important to understand.

The service provider shall administer a customized 12:00 PM ET cut-off time for all participant transactions.

The service provider shall work with incumbent service provider.

6. Indicative Metrics and Plans The following measurement areas and plans are offered as an indication of the type of oversight that

FRTIB is seeking for ongoing management, measurement and reporting to verify that the services are meeting the intended objectives in Section 4 – Objectives. RFP respondents will be required to develop management plans and meet performance requirements.

Defined Contribution Services Delivery

A. Participant Services

Participant satisfaction

Employing agency satisfaction

Website access availability

Responsive support for participant inquiries

B. Administrative Services

Transaction processing time

Transaction processing quality

Processing time and accuracy of payroll data

Timeliness of delivering account statements

C. Regulatory, Accounting and Compliance

Processing time for legal and death claims

Timeliness of accounting feeds

Security and Information Technology

● Comprehensive Security Management Plan

● Security Incident Report

● SOC 1 Type 2 Report and SOC 2 Type 2 Report

● Global access and availability

Program Management and Quality

● Business Continuity Plan

● Quality Assurance Plan

● Contract/Program Management Plan

● Risk Management Plan

● Timeliness and quality of deliverables

Transition Services

● Transition-In Plan

● Successfully meet acceptance criteria for Go-Live