Research to support a new industry report released today on pension data management has shown that 57% of UK pension schemes believe improving the accuracy of member data is the greatest challenge schemes face as time moves towards The Pension Regulators enforcement of the ‘Record Keeping’ guidelines in 2012.
Clear Path Analysis, a research and publishing company, surveyed 41 UK based pension schemes for a new report titled ‘Data Management for Pension Schemes’. The report involving input from The Pensions Regulator, BT Pension Scheme and the Pensions Protection Fund has shown the wide difference in how schemes are tackling a historical problem of poor data management alongside the view The Pensions Regulator is taking as regards flexibility on the 2012 guidelines.
Head of Regulatory Policy and Programs at The Pensions Regulator, Justin Wray, comments: ‘In terms of flexibility there are 3 things that we say we expect schemes to do: we expect them to measure where they are, we expect them to know what the state of their data is, we expect them to have a plan to improve it if that’s necessary, and we expect that plan to be a credible one, not a sort of make-believe effort’.
Kevin O’Boyle, Chief Executive Officer for the BT Pension Scheme, one of the UK’s largest occupational schemes: ‘Poor data management leads to real and avoidable cost and puts pressure on service. Administrators and trustees need to understand how well their data is managed and put action plans in place to develop high quality data and processes for keeping it that way.’
The report which contains views from the pension scheme community as well as the Pension Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund is aimed at addressing the inconsistency in how pension schemes have reacted to the need for improvement in data quality and aims to analyse the various approaches schemes are taking to addressing their own data issues.
John Broker, Director at ITM, comments: ‘In our experience, many data errors that result in serious problems could have quite easily been avoided if a full independent data audit and cleanse project had been undertaken at an earlier stage.’
Penny Green, Chief Executive Officer at the Universities Superannuation Scheme and a significant advocate of The Pension Regulators ‘Record Keeping’ guidelines comments:
‘I do not believe inherently that what is being asked [by The Pensions Regulator] is actually unreasonable, and I think it is embarrassing that the regulator has had to issue guidance on this and has had to take a hard line on this, because of the appalling quality of the data that has been delivered to the pension’s protection fund’.
Consult the report by clicking here.
Source : Data Management for Pension Schemes’ report conducted by Clear Path Analysis
