Our History

Operated originally as a Sole Trader in 1998 and then as a Partnership, Fairway Training Ltd officially started trading in April 2000. At the start (1997) the company very much concentrated on NHS Pension Scheme training primarily for Practice Managers. This was because the NHS Pension Scheme was only opened up to GP Practice staff in September 1997 and overnight 10,000 GP Practices were suddenly faced with the daunting prospect of running a pension scheme.

Fairway Training courses were quickly devised and mainly delivered by Philip Weatherall. The demand was outstripping supply as Practice Mangers struggled to deal with the complexities of the NHS Pension Scheme. However it soon became apparent that learning day to day administration was only half the battle. As pension events were reasonably rare at a GP Practice, when they did occur, where could the Practice Manager go for help? From that type of scenario the GP Support service started and Practice Managers were now able to talk to Pension professionals who had sat on their side of the desk! This has steadily grown over the intervening years.

In November 2002 Fairway Training moved to Bordesley Hall in Alvechurch and this opened up new possibilities for expansion. Now we were able to offer a much fuller service and the Pension Administration service quickly grew as Practice Managers decided that it was a financially viable option to outsource their NHS Pension work. This also coincided with the Payroll service being developed. After receiving a number of enquires we decided to offer a full payroll bureau option. In the early days at Bordesley Hall we had just twelve payroll clients - all of whom are still with us.

In 2004 we decided to become a BACS approved bureau so that we could offer a complete BACS service and after some rigorous testing by BACS, we were granted a licence to operate. This is now known as BACSTEL-IP.

To further improve our services, when Pensions Online (POL) was launched, circa 2004, we quickly realised that to keep at the leading edge of our field, investment was needed to ensure access was available to our clients records via POL. As a third party provider obtaining access to the NHSnet was not an easy step to take but with some persistence we succeeded. This enabled us to have full access to members records for those Practices which not all third party providers/bureaus are able to do.

With the passing of each year our turnover has increased along with our staffing levels. Seeking improvements to all our services is a feature of our organization and plans are being made for further enhancements from which all our clients should benefit.