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Carey Group has predominantly been an offshore employee benefits provider, but through the development of its UK operation under Christine Hallett, chief executive for Carey Pensions UK, the firm has delivered a bespoke service for pension planning for both private individuals and group members.

Ms Hallett said: "The life offices' group personal pension model no longer fits the needs of the workplace pension, and changes are needed in the provision of workplace pensions to provide an employee benefit that is a benefit.

"Before GPP schemes, workplace pensions were set up using the best practices of each component. It is time to go back to that scenario, and unbundle the complexities of GPPs. The proposed contract will therefore have separate and transparent charging of individual components."

Steve Moseley, a director of Sterling McCall, said: "We have been trying to build a workplace pension for 12 months. With the current established models, the risk assessment, fund allocation and fund reviews make it nigh on impossible for an IFA to meet the standards required in a practical and viable manner.

"We will be bringing to the workplace mandated portfolios with targeted returns through our discretionary fund manager, Newscape. The key is to keep the costs and administration down, while offering all the benefits of discretionary management to the clients."

The tie-up with Carey Pensions, Newscape and its platform partner, Praemium, will attract a 0.9 per cent annual management charge.

The adviser's charges are in addition to this and the intention is to mix both fee and trail at 0.15 per cent, according to Sterling McCall.

Danny Cox, chartered financial planner for Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The GPP is in a slow decline and alternative pensions such as Group Sipp are in the ascendancy. However GPPs are still a workable good solution for a number of companies and I am not convinced the baby needs to be thrown out with the bath water just yet.

"Quite right, it is simply not cost effective. But this has been the case of many years. This is why we do not provide advice at the member level but provide an implementation meeting on an information-only basis.

The margins must be tight and they probably need significant volume to be viable. Against this the market is crowded and they will be competing against very established brands.