Pensions data needs around £25m invested in it over a four-year period to “get it up to scratch”, and it is not currently good enough for pensions dashboards, according to Pensions Administration Standards Association (Pasa) president Margaret Snowdon.

Speaking on a panel session at the PLSA Annual Conference today, 16 October, Snowdon said that although she has been really pleased by progress made within administration to member services, data is “the big elephant in the room”.

“Everybody talks about it, everybody knows and thinks ‘well data is dull, we’ve been through it, we’ve got common standards, we’ve got conditional standards, it’s all hunky dory’, but actually it’s not,” she said.

“Data is simply not good enough. Some people actually fib about the state of their data quality, and others don’t actually know what their data quality is. I don’ think the data that we use is good enough for good pensions administration, and I don’t think it’s good enough for dashboards either.”

However, she said that the industry should not focus on who’s fault it is but should get on and sort it.

“I think we need to spend about £25m over a four-year period on data to get it up to scratch. Now that’s quite a lot, where is that going to come from, well maybe we can discuss that later on.”

However, she does think that in 2020 the industry will see some big strides in data, either by carrot or stick.

Snowdon also touched on the subject of pension scams, in which she said around. She said last year there was £60bn of transfer requests, with £34bn was transferred out from DB schemes.

“Of that amount, research has shown that probably £1.5bn of that has gone to a dodgy arrangement or a scam. That is scary stuff and we need to do something to stop that.”

She said that because of this, there is a rise in claims management firms who are seeing opportunities in trying to help those people get some of that money back.

“The schemes that don’t do due diligence are going to find themselves in a real sticky place, when those claims management companies come back to claim some money,” she said.

In addition, Snowdon also highlighted the rise of cyber attacks, which she said are on the increase, however, when they do happen people don’t broadcast it. She said that there is a huge amount of money in pensions, and pension fund data is also very valuable – schemes she should see data as having a monetary value.

Joining in the discussion, Universities Superannuation Scheme chief executive, Bill Galvin, said it is “quite sobering” when he is shown lists of the amount of cyber attacks that the scheme has blocked.

Nest chief executive Helen Dean added that it is the responsibility of schemes to keep data secure for members.

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