Data have been a sticking point for many schemes and employers. Who can blame them? Of all the areas of pensions, data isn’t the most inspiring and engaging to newcomers.
However, as many employers are coming to find out, it is an extremely important subject. A new group called Friends of Auto-Enrolment, the brainchild of the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals, is attempting to create a data standard to help employers auto-enrol more easily.
Friends of AE and Pensions BIB – an informal collaboration between BCS Payroll Group, IReeN, which is a user group for online electronic exchange between employers and HM Revenue & Customs, and BASDA HR & Payroll Special Interest Group – are working to achieve a free-to-use, open, unlicensed data standard for auto-enrolment.
(Note: BIB is just the first initial of each organisation’s name).
The group published the first draft of its pensions and payroll data standard this month.
However, as many employers are coming to find out, it is an extremely important subject. A new group called Friends of Auto-Enrolment, the brainchild of the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals, is attempting to create a data standard to help employers auto-enrol more easily.
Friends of AE and Pensions BIB – an informal collaboration between BCS Payroll Group, IReeN, which is a user group for online electronic exchange between employers and HM Revenue & Customs, and BASDA HR & Payroll Special Interest Group – are working to achieve a free-to-use, open, unlicensed data standard for auto-enrolment.
(Note: BIB is just the first initial of each organisation’s name).
The group published the first draft of its pensions and payroll data standard this month.
The initial draft of the Pensions & Payroll Data Interface Standard stated: “The purpose of this interface is to allow payroll and middleware software developers to create a file that can be used by pension providers to receive information regarding new members and pension contributions deducted from members and their employers that are due to be paid to the pension provider.”
Pensions consultancy LEBC has supported Friends of AE's efforts:
@LEBCGroup fully supports the free data standard initiative being driven by Pensions BIB for auto-enrolment http://t.co/I1s3QCTcpf
— Concise PR (@ConcisePR) July 4, 2014Despite the organisation's enthusiastic press bombardment, the initiative is admirable. It asserted that “data collation and transfer is a serious issue for many companies trying to implement AE compliantly”.
Pensions Expert has reported on employers and schemes upgrading payroll software to become compliant with auto-enrolment. In March and April of last year, the £3.1bn Avon Pension Fund began rolling out a new payroll software package.
“[The package] has enabled us to obtain all the data from payroll extracts and upload [them] to the pension system without human interference,” Geoff Cleak, pension benefits manager at the fund, said at the time.
The data error risk has been reduced and consistent information is uploaded to the administration system on a monthly basis, he added.
The challenge of scheme data is not going away. Any collaboration on the issue is welcome.
