Towards the end of last year, the Pensions and Administration Standards Association (Pasa) Data Working Group issued a survey seeking insights into how data’s prioritised and managed across the pensions industry.

While some of the outcomes were as we may have expected, there were some areas which provided some interesting insight.

Overall there appears to be a discrepancy between intent and action when it comes to managing pension scheme data, and for many pension schemes action needs to catch up.

Data Storage

The industry has made advances in the sophistication of data software and storage over the last decade or so.

But it was interesting to note c.60 per cent of survey respondents hold member data outside of the ad-ministration software, with 55 per cent of those still using paper files as part of ongoing administration pro-cesses.

Perhaps not surprising for those working in administration, but it’s a demonstration pension schemes have some way to go to bring themselves in line with the technologies today’s society expects.

Schemes should look at digitisation of their member documentation as a way to reduce ongoing costs, aid user experience and meet dashboards’ requirements – as well as supporting data quality improvement projects.

Data Management Plan

It was good to see 68 per cent of the survey respondents have a Data Management Plan in place. There’s been positive adoption of the Pasa Data Management Plan Guidance across the industry, and for many schemes it’s now part of their ongoing approach to data governance.

Other policies
Implementation of other policies is less positive, with 56 per cent of the survey respondents stating they have a data improvement plan in place, 32 per cent with a data strategy and only 28 per cent adopting data as a standing agenda item for trustee meetings. Thankfully, all schemes stated they already have a data security policy in place!

Data scoring

The survey indicated the approach taken to data scoring, both the ‘how’ and ‘when’ is driven closely by the minimum requirements laid down by The Pensions Regulator.

The majority of survey responses indicated data scoring is focused on common and scheme specific data requirements, adopting the binary scoring minimums and focusing only on presence and basic format validation.

While this approach to data scoring is a good place to start, for many schemes this won’t be enough to understand and action data challenges.

Schemes should look to undertake data scoring on an annual basis and expand their approach to include scheme specific data as well as common data scoring. Data scoring and other data management information should be part of regular reporting to trustees and pension scheme managers.

Data reviews

Most of the survey respondents stated they’d conducted a data review in the last 12 months and/or will be in the next 12 months. But this work doesn’t equate with budgets allocated to data – which was indicated at less than £10k for almost half the survey respondents.

There was quite a range of budgets though, with some survey respondents indicating a budget of over £100k for the year. This variance be-tween may relate to scheme sizes as well as budget constraints.

Data screening

Additionally, 84 per cent of the survey respondents stated ongoing data screening activities focus predominantly on mortality and addresses.

The ability for pension schemes to access databases and better control the accuracy of some of its data is improving and is an important activity for pension schemes to undertake regularly.

Data accuracy

Fifty-eight per cent of survey respondents don’t undertake any data accuracy activities. Data accuracy is more challenging to analyse, but there are ways to take action.

Conclusion

There were significant contradictions in the survey results. We saw low budgets for data and lack of inclusion in trustee meetings were reported, but then 95 per cent of survey respondents stated data is a priority! 79 per cent of survey respondents stated they could do more to manage the quality of pension data, while 85 per cent of survey respondents reported their member data is of a good quality.

How can data be a priority if you’re not talking about it or taking any action? How can you have confidence in data being of good quality if you’re not doing enough to review it?

Overconfidence coupled with low levels of action needs to change. We were pleased to see 85 per cent of sur-vey respondents reported referring to Pasa Data Working Group (and other Pasa Working Groups’) publications when making decisions on how to manage pension data. Look out for our Data Review Guidance to be issued next month.

Pasa has an established Data Working Group which brings together knowledge and experience across the pensions industry to support trustees, administrators, employers and providers in this area and provide practical guidance in the management of pension scheme data.

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