The Pensions Regulator has asked trustees to report on record-keeping in their scheme return to help improve standards.
A survey published by TPR of more than 530 trust-based occupational schemes has revealed little recent improvement in record-keeping, essential to deliver value for money and protect member outcomes.
The survey showed 30 per cent of members are in schemes where conditional data, data used to calculate benefits, is not measured.
Additionally, larger schemes are significantly more likely to have measured their data - 87 per cent of large schemes had measured common data versus 18 per cent of micro schemes.
Alongside this, administrators’ understanding of the terms common data and conditional data is not universal.
The survey also showed administrators and trustees perceive conditional data as secondary to common data with two fifths - 39 per cent - of administrators feeling the measurement of conditional data was not a priority for their scheme.
Andrew Warwick-Thompson, executive director at The Pensions Regulator, said it was disappointing that TPR is not seeing more schemes taking their duty to keep proper records more seriously.
He said: "We’ve made clear what our expectations are and many schemes, across all scheme types, are not meeting them. By adding record-keeping measures to the scheme return, we will be able to target our interventions more specifically at those failing in their duties.
“Good record-keeping is essential to the good running of a scheme. The time to engage is now – if you don’t, you run the risk of increased costs, not managing funding or risks properly, and you could even put members’ benefits at risk."
Mr Warwick-Thompson added TPR knows schemes are looking to improve members’ experience and engagement through enhanced use of technology such as offering self-service access or participating in industry-wide initiatives like the pensions dashboard, but all this relies on good data, and good data security.
ruth.gillbe@ft.com
