On the go: The Pensions Administration Standards Association has launched its new data management controls guidance.
PASA’s new guidance provides support in areas such as considerations for pension schemes when setting data controls, receiving new data and for existing data items, the importance of benchmarking, and what regular testing looks like.
The guidance builds on PASA’s data management plans guidance, which was launched earlier this year and covered areas such as the understanding of pension scheme data, the data process, measuring data quality, and managing the data management plan.
At the time of the launch of PASA’s first guide, Louise Sivyer, policy principal at the Pensions Regulator’s regulatory policy directorate, stressed the importance of data not becoming inaccurate during Covid-19 as the pandemic had “given rise to new risks”.
She added that staying on top of data had to be a priority, and would be “more painless” if reviewed and attended to at ad hoc intervals.
Kristy Cotton, chair of the PASA data working group, said: “Pension schemes regularly hold millions of data items, and it’s essential appropriate processes and procedures are in place to manage this and ensure data remains in good shape.
“If data isn’t accurate and kept up to date, then time, resource and budget will be needed to accommodate and fix inaccuracies.”
Cotton said that holding precise data had never been more important, adding: “Trustees are facing ever increasing demands for accurate data such as the dashboards’ requirements, regulatory reporting, derisking activities, automated calculations, and self-service.
“As such, having confidence in an accurate and reliable dataset should be one of the key objectives for all trustees and their stakeholders. This guidance provides practical support for schemes and administrators in considering and developing their own data management controls,” she said.
