On the go: The Pensions Administration Standards Association has issued guidance to help schemes prepare their data for the pensions dashboards, while revealing that many schemes are “not actively managing their data”.
In the document published on July 4, PASA stated that “some” schemes are actively tracking their data, knowing where their gaps and inaccuracies are. However, the industry body noted that “many more are still not actively managing their data”.
The main reason for this is due to a lack of data “validation” from schemes, which can be achieved by confirming metrics such as a member’s address, surname and forename that can change over time. If not validated, it reduces the accuracy of data.
This is key as schemes “need to be able to accurately confirm” whether their data is a match to dashboards’ requests, it said.
PASA’s guidance follows a campaign launched by the Pensions Regulator, which urges trustees to prepare for the pensions dashboards deadline, as new research showed that less than 10 per cent of schemes have begun to digitise the information they hold in preparation for the initiative.
Current legislation dictates that large schemes — with 1,000 or more members — will have a staging period to start providing data for the Money and Pensions Service dashboard from April 2023 to September 2024.
Medium schemes — with 100 to 999 members — will connect between October 2024 to October 2025.
Small and micro schemes — those with fewer than 100 members — are not currently covered by the draft regulations, but the Department for Work and Pensions expects to stage these schemes from 2026.
PASA’s data working group chair Kristy Cotton said: “As the dashboards launch dates creep ever closer, trustees need to be able to accurately confirm their saver’s data is a match to dashboards’ requests, making it vital the data held is accurate and has been validated.”
The guidance dictates that schemes must confirm the existence of members, which traditionally has been done via written confirmation. But the industry body is recommending a more efficient process by using government disclosure of death registration data that is available through third parties.
All items of data, such as name, date of birth, national insurance number and address should be checked against the various data sources available, it said.
The guidance also cited credit reference agency data as an effective approach for schemes, as it “can be accessed either directly from CRAs or alternatively through third parties offering additional services to support the process”.
Cotton added: “As a minimum, pension schemes should consider ensuring name, date of birth and NINO aren’t only present, but also accurate to ensure the correct data is available to be searched by a dashboard enquiry”.
