Pensions watchdog cracks down on dodgy data
Britain’s pensions watchdog has launched a crackdown on poor record-keeping by schemes, ordering them to urgently review their data to make sure savers get the retirement pay they are entitled to.
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is asking the trustee boards of 400 pension schemes to conduct a data review within six months. These schemes are believed to have failed to review their data in the last three years.
Read more: Should the state pension age increase from 68 to 75 by 2035?
It has demanded they report what proportion of their members they hold accurate common and scheme-specific data for.
Failure to comply with the notice carries a fine of up to £5,000 for an individual or up to £50,000 in any other case. Trustees and scheme managers are responsible for ensuring the reviews are completed.
TPR’s executive director of regulatory policy David Fairs said without accurate records “trustees cannot ensure that savers will get accurate information or receive the pensions they are entitled to”.
“Requiring trustees to carry out reviews will force them to look closely at their data and administration and take appropriate action to bring their systems up to scratch.”
Baroness Ros Altmann, a former pensions minister who now sits in the House of Lords, told City A.M: “It’s about time the Pensions Regulator took data and record keeping much more seriously.
“The lack of reliable information is causing significant hardship to many pensioners who often find the pension they were told they would live on for the rest of their life is not as much as they were expecting.
Read more: Pensions data is stuck in the ‘dark ages’, says former pensions minister
“This is due to errors made by those calculating their pensions who were using wrong data.
“Pension records are often still I disarray. It should have been sorted out years ago and even auto-enrolment records are plagued with errors.”
Main image: Getty