Civica UK Limited

Civica Pensions UPM (Universal Pensions Management)

UPM is the leading multi-channel platform designed to meet both member and employer administration needs of public sector pension schemes (LGPS, Police, Firefighters). Powerful workflow transforms delivery of services by reducing administration, automating and streamlining business processes, providing integration capabilities whilst achieving agile ways of working, delivering savings and efficiencies.

Features

• An efficient and flexible repository for all pensions data
• Intelligent processes that can be managed by trained pensions staff
• An enterprise workflow and integration platform
• Automated LGPS, Police and Fire calculations
• Full integration of payroll, web, workflow, calculations and documents
• Employer portal, workflow and EDM capabilities
• Online retirement modellers for scheme members
• Case tracking and secure messaging for members online
• Portal enables members to transact via any device
• Extensive data validation tools

Benefits

• Deliver true channel-shift through member and employer self-service
• Scalable and flexible solution for single/multiple scheme administration
• Enforces, guides, automates and audits workflow & process
• Easy regression testing of full calculation suite against own data
• Reduce admin overhead by pushing admin tasks online
• Stringent security and audit facility
• Intuitive user experience
• Track processing trends and volumes to review service delivery
• Easy to access MI via dashboards e.g. performance, throughout
• Integration framework enables flexible third party integration options

£1,600 a user a year

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at g-cloud@civica.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

689988918417427

Contact

Civica UK Limited
+44 (0) 3333 214 914
g-cloud@civica.co.uk

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model:
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
• Service constraints: Access to UPM is available on a 24 x 7 basis. Planned maintenance windows, when the service will be unavailable, will be agreed with the customer, with updates usually being within standard working hours. Customers can agree out of hours updates at an additional charge. Civica will agree with customers a notice period where possible of scheduled maintenance tasks.
• System requirements: This will be scoped as part of the contract mobilisation

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: "The severity of the call will determine the maximum response time; The severity is set by the criteria below: ; ; 1. Business Critical; 2. Major Operational; 3. Minor Operational; 4. Inconvenience; 5. System not impeded; ; The support desk will provide an initial response to all support calls as follows - ; ; Severity 1 - Within 60 minutes of logging the call with Civica; Severity 2 - Within 3 hours; Severity 3 - Within 9 hours; Severity 4 - Within 18 hours; Severity 5 - Within 18 hours; ; The support desk is open between the hours of 8.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday."
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Civica will respond to application related incidents as below and will take all reasonable steps to achieve a resolution within target timescales. Civica will respond to incidents relating to availability of cloud services in an accelerated timeframe: Level 1 - 2 working hours - 1 working day. Level 2 - 2 working hours - 5 working days. Level 3 - 2 working hours - 30 working days. Level 4 - 2 working hours - 60 working days. Level 5 – TBA. The Support Desk can be contacted via the email, online or telephone. Tickets are logged in a Service Management tool which creates an individual record and unique reference. Incidents are allocated a Severity based on information provided.; Standard SLA:; ; Non-Payroll Ticket; Severity Target Response Target Fix; ; 1 1 working hour 4 working hours; 2 2 working hours 1 working hour; 3 2 working hours 5 working days; 4 7 working hours Case-by-case basis; 5 7 working hours Case-by-case basis; ; For Payroll Tickets; Severity Target Response Target Fix; 1 1 Working Hour 4 Working Hours; 2 1 Working Hour 1 Working Day; 3 2 Working Hours 5 Working Days; 4 2 Working Hours 30 Working Days; 5 N/A Case-by-case basis
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Civica offers a complete range of training services for UPM and will conduct a Training Needs Analysis with new customers prior to commencing the training programme. Training is provided on-site at the customer premises with the equipment agreed in advance. All training documentation is provided by Civica. Staff are trained to enable them to update, change and build upon the solution implemented using the tool sets provided.; ; Civica’s standard training schedule has the flexibility to be tailored to add additional services if required. It is structured to provide practise time during the training, with sessions held at a suitable time apart to allow for information gathering and set-up. Each course includes practise time and runs from 10:00 to 16:00.; ; The specific methods used are agreed at the outset of the project including:; ● Classroom training held at the customer’s premises or in one of Civica’s dedicated training facilities.; ● Use of customised training environment, configuration and data set to allow the training to be based on the customer’s specific implementation of the solution.; ● Some eLearning materials distributed using external media or the internet.; ● Shorter training courses can be delivered via Teams.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: All service customer data and member/employer user accounts are stored in an industry standard proprietary relational database on a storage platform appropriate to the solution.; All service customer generated data is returned to the customer. This is held in three possible places of the system within the:; • Live database and active directory; • Backup on the primary site; • Secondary disaster recovery database and active directory.; All service customer data and user accounts shall be supplied to the customer using the export format of the industry standard proprietary relational database.; Where data is held within the Active Directory of the solution this shall be exported in a pre-defined format.; These files of data are compressed and transferred via a secure courier using either removable disk or optical media (encrypted as appropriate) to the customer's Primary admin contact address which must be within the UK. The costs for this are determined on a case by case basis and shall be dependent upon the amount of data, media extracted to and security level required.; Civica shall destroy all live and backup copies of the data within our control and provide written confirmation to the customer that this has been performed.
• End-of-contract process: Following completion of a service termination form an exit plan will be agreed including data extract arrangements.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems: Windows
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: The desktop version is for pensions administrators and employers. The member portal is accessible on mobile devices.
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Description of service interface: Civica provides a service interface for performing all tasks within the system. Access is controlled by User Permissions, which define the modules that users can access and the tasks they can perform.; Civica provide public access to the system via web portals for members and employers; this is controlled by specific user names and passwords.
• Accessibility standards: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Accessibility testing: NA
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Dependant on application/module
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: UPM is a highly configurable software product to meet the complex administration needs of public sector schemes and a diverse range of business processes. The security and access rights are entirely customisable, ensuring only the right people can access the right data. At a scheme/member level, the service has ample configuration to allow buyers to customise the solution to meet specific requirements and extra fields for example. As well as this, the incumbent process map editor ensures users are using and taking the right steps and procedures of any process by building the process map within our own internal editor allowing all buyers (where they are a system administrator) to customise and define their own processes to meet any level of business requirements. In addition to this, user level configuration is also available in order for standard users to customise the service should that person have accessibility issues such as colour blindness for example. User level configuration is available to all users to enhance their experience of using the service and also can be used to bring forward prevalent areas of the system dependent on the user's role.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: The service is backed by Azure and we make best use of the Azure Services, for instance geographically replaced databases, app service scaling, to make sure the system handles varying loads and demands.; Application insights and real time monitoring is used to both alert and tune service performance.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: No

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest: Other
• Other data at rest protection approach: Physical access control, complying with ISO27001
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: As part of this framework, Civica have a number of utilities where in the case that the user wants to extract documents and data out of UPM, then these utilities will achieve this. The utility to be used will be dependent upon whether the user is wanting to export data for a low number of members, or an entire scheme. There are utilities that will encrypt the data upon extraction if this is required (such as when sending to our helpdesk to replicate issues), and there are utilities that allow the user to configure the format of the output.
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats: Other
• Other data import formats:
  • Fixed Length
  • XML

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: Other
• Other protection between networks: As we are a cloud service we typically avoid any need to transfer data between networks. All communication is on secure channels and goes through web application firewalls. Where transfers are required (for instance file transfer), these are mandated over secure channels and is only accessible to specific users of the system.
• Data protection within supplier network: Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Microsoft Defender is utilised for the scanning and storage of transient files where they are required for use within the application.

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Civica’s standard core hours are 7am-7pm, Monday to Friday (excluding UK Bank holidays). Access to the service (remote access to data centre, domain names, network connections, IP addresses, hosted software and equipment) during core hours will have an uptime availability of 99.99%
• Approach to resilience: Available on request.
• Outage reporting: Infrastructure related scheduled maintenance will not occur between 07:00 and 19:00 Monday to Friday excluding English Bank Holidays. Maintenance will be arranged with a minimum of 3 working days’ notice, and will include a detailed description of the planned works, planned outcomes, and a detailed back-out plan, unless otherwise stated.; Unplanned outages will be notified via the Civica Service Desk.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication: Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Azure platform is locked down to specific IP and AD accounts
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Alcumus ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 06/10/2022
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: NA
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: Yes
• Who accredited the PCI DSS certification: Viking Cloud
• PCI DSS accreditation date: 11/08/2023
• What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover: Applies to CivicaPay only
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • ISO27701
  • ISO22301
  • Cyber Essentials

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards:
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • Other
• Other security governance standards: ISO27701 - Privacy Management; ISO22301 - Business Continuity; PCI-DSS; Cyber Essentials
• Information security policies and processes: In order to provide a wide range of services to public and private sector organisations, Civica maintains an active information security programme. This programme requires regular internal and external audit inspection of both physical and logical data protection structures. The policies and procedures are aligned to ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials certifications.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All hosted assets metadata is stored in a Configuration Management Data Base. This data base is access controlled to authorised staff only. The CMDB provides information essential to the secure hosting of client critical services.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Civica has vulnerability management processes in place for ISO27001 and PCI-DSS. These processes are externally audited on an annual basis to ensure continued compliance.; For external vulnerability scanning, Civica employs the services of an external ‘CHECK’ approved provider to perform an annual penetration test against the external management IP interface. Supporting this, Civica is also certified to the CESG approved Cyber Essentials scheme. For high value financial hosted system, Civica also maintains a PCI-DSS v3.1 certification. In scope systems are subject to month internal and external vulnerability cans as well as a full penetration test twice a year.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Civica take a proactive approach to information security through a process of continual monitoring and review. As part of a documented risk assessment methodology to identify and manage information security risks a dedicated security team update the risk register monthly.; Civica has a network monitoring solution in place ‘OpsView’ as well as a full antivirus and anti-malware solution. These technologies check the hosted services for errors, infections and unexpected network traffic and are support by Cisco IPS/IDS at the perimeter layer. This monitoring service provides defence in depth, against compromise, by detecting infections and suspicious networking activity within the environment.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: Civica have developed an Incident Management process (PRM07) under ISO 20000 standards which details both the Incident and Service Request Management processes.; The Civica Service Desk manages end user Service Requests, Incidents and Requests for Change (RFCs) which can be logged by e-mail, telephone and web portal.; Monthly customer reports will detail incident information.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  As a company, we’ve made an ambitious commitment to achieve Net Zero Carbon emissions by 2040 (or sooner) by supporting our customers net zero ambitions, creating software with inbuilt sustainability and reducing our own impact.; ; Our Carbon Reduction Plan demonstrates our ambition to become industry leaders in reducing our environmental impact in support of the UK’s Net Zero Target. Underlining this ambition, we are focusing not only on our direct emissions sources but also actively engaging with our wider supply chain to understand, measure and develop meaningful emissions reductions targets in line with our Net Zero Target.; ; We are accredited to the ISO14001 Standard and to support delivery of our commitment our Environment, Social Value and Governance provides clear focus for the ongoing development of our environmental policy.; ; • We develop innovative software-based services that reduce power requirements.; ; • We help customers opt for more sustainable choices, through digital platforms/apps which remove paper, support flexible/agile working, underpinned by cloud-based services employing energy efficient technology.; ; • We support carbon neutrality with workforces/facilities to reduce carbon consumption over the next 10-years.; ; • We prioritise the use of green energy in Civica owned facilities within 10 years.; ; • We promote recycling through our ‘Zero to Landfill’ and ‘Zero Print’ schemes.; ; Our commitment to continue to promote with employees and customers a much greater responsibility and leadership in eliminating unnecessary single-use plastics; we will continue to look to make more innovative and systematic changes to further reduce our use of single-use plastics across the organisation and to openly share our outcomes and learnings.; ; We undertake SECR Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting on our environmental footprint and the progress we are making to becoming Net Zero. ; ; Our commitment to fighting climate change will help deliver the policy outcomes for fighting climate change under PPN 06/20.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Civica is committed to building an inclusive and diverse culture that tackles inequality in employment, skills and pay. We promote equal opportunity through all our activities and ensure rights for all employees are always protected. We are listed as a 2020 Financial Times Diversity Leader and we are a ‘Gold’ Investors in People company. ; ; We have increased our focus and commitment to ensure we proactively implement equal and non-discriminatory treatment to all our workers. We have implemented a Diversity & Inclusion Strategy and have a Diversity and Inclusion Lead to drive the implementation of this strategy. This aims to tackle inequality in recruitment practices, team development, skills and pay through the following actions:; ; • We are a Living Wage accredited employer.; ; • We recruit locally to where services are delivered.; ; • We are committed to developing the skills of young people near our client’s businesses e.g., for a local authority, we have developed a programme of engagement workshops for young people with the potential for digital work experience. ; ; • Our staff act as mentors for Youth Enterprise schemes in schools/universities.; ; • We are a member of the 5% club, an industry-led initiative focused on creating momentum behind the recruitment of apprentices into the UK workplace. ; ; • Over 2.5% of our workplace is made up of apprentices or graduates and we intend to increase this to 5% by the end of 2025.; ; • We provide our own apprenticeship programme for managers, giving them access to training and development that may not be accessible outside the workplace.; ; Our commitment to building an inclusive and diverse culture will help deliver the policy outcomes for tackling economic inequality under PPN 06/20 and will dramatically improve job prospects and increase earning potential for the young and job seeking communities.

  Equal opportunity

  Civica is committed to providing equal opportunities and building an inclusive and diverse culture. The more diverse our workforce, the more informed the decisions we can make for our customers, supporting the communities in which we work. ; ; We are proud to have been ranked as one of the top European companies for workforce diversity and equality, as chosen by in the Financial Times in 2020.; ; We are committed to building and maintaining an inclusive and supportive culture where diversity thrives:; ; • To ensure our recruitment practices support the attraction and hiring of diverse candidates, all vacancies are advertised on multiple Diversity & Inclusion platforms.; ; • We run attraction campaigns targeting females and BAME applicants. We use a process of anonymised applications, competency-based questions and scoring to remove bias. We also use decoders to ensure job advertisements use gender and culturally neutral language. We also ensure mixed panel interviewing.; ; • We advertise vacancies on https://disabilityjob.co.uk/ and share diversity statements on all job adverts.; ; • We have made training on diversity and inclusion mandatory.; ; • We aim to ensure increased diversity of new starters in technology/sales/leadership roles by 10% per annum over the next 3 years.; ; • We aim to ensure that at least 50% of shortlisted people are being considered from a diverse background for roles above £35k.; ; • We promote affinity groups within the company who represent a group of people linked by a common characteristic, often underrepresented, or historically excluded, which acts as a ‘safe space’ for such individuals. This identity could be related to race, gender, sexual orientation, language, nationality, physical or mental ability, socioeconomic class, family structure, religion, amongst others.; ; Our commitment to providing equality of opportunity will support the delivery of the policy outcomes for equal opportunity under PPN 06/20.

  Wellbeing

  Civica actively promote a mentally healthy workplace and workforce integrating mental health and general wellbeing in all that we do from recruitment, appraisals to strategic management.; ; Through our Health and Wellbeing Policy and 40+ Mental Health Champions we encourage a flexible and realistic work/life balance. Our HWP provides a foundation to support both the mental and physical health of our staff through:; ; • Employee Assistance Programme and online Wellbeing Hub, which provides 24/7 access to websites, e-mail, phone and face-to-face counselling on all personal issues.; ; • Aviva DigiCare+ Workplace App providing external mental health consultancy.; ; • Mental Health Champions who support colleagues’ wellbeing in the workplace.; ; • RedArc Personal nurse service.; ; • Management Coaching - managers are trained in GROW (Goals, Reality, Options and Will) and in being Health and Wellbeing Advisors, supporting employees with mental/physical health needs.; ; • Health assessments/advice aimed at improving physical health.; ; • Cycle to Work scheme to aid physical and mental health.; ; • Weekly fruit drop for offices, encouraging a healthier diet; ; • We provide free eye tests for all VDU users, encourage staff to take advantage of NHS flu vaccinations services, and support people wishing to use the NHS Stop Smoking Service.; ; We also support our customers’ and communities’ through The Civica Foundation, our home for all charity, community, volunteering and social value. Our Days of Difference initiative gives every Civica employee 3 days a year to make a difference to charitable or community causes. Our employee’s can use this individually, join-up as a team or take part in Civica coordinated events. ; ; Suppliers/subcontractors are subject to Civica’s Sub-contractor Selection Process as defined in our ISO9001 QMS, which includes criteria for assessing health and wellbeing policies.; ; Our commitment to providing equality of opportunity supports the delivery of the policy outcomes for Wellbeing under PPN 06/20.

Pricing

• Price: £1,600 a user a year
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at g-cloud@civica.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.