One of the more outspoken debates on Pensionweb has been with regard to the Pension Regulator recommending 100% accuracy in data for everything post June 2010.
As one of the pension managers says, with their regular interaction with HR, payroll, different company divisions etc, it will never be possible have 100% accuracy on common data such as addresses. One of the other Pensionweb correspondents suggested that a way out may be to put the company office address where one is missing. And another suggested simply accepting it will never be 100% as constantly chasing deferred pensioners for new addresses is not worth the administrative expense.
The section in the ‘record keeping’ section on the Regulator’s site says this:
“14. The targets for the standard of common data we recommend is achieved by December 2012 are:
- For new data created after June 2010 – 100%
- For legacy data (created before June 2010) – 95%; this lower level is in recognition that many schemes will have greater difficulties with older data and may inherit problems from previous trustees, managers or administrators.”
An unreasonable target? Definitely. For any largish scheme, data changes every day. Yes, I guess you could cheat the system by putting in a temporary address, but better the Regulator understood the issue and stated up front that he was aware that the 100% would not be achieved. Better still, give a few percent leeway, as he has done with legacy data.
A small point. But not a small issue. If the Regulator wants to work with the industry, he needs to be careful how he speaks.
