An article on Citywire’s website today shows one of the interesting problems we face in the pensions arena: namely detailed information gathering. The report cites the NHS Pension Scheme which has announced it will limit the data that it gives to financial advisers on behalf of its scheme members. Advisers might request details for any number of valid reasons including the more obvious retirement planning, divorce, ill-heath or early retirement scenarios.
On the one hand, the government wants the public to be educated, informed and engaged about retirement provision. On the other hand, there are data protection issues, administrative costs and time constraints to be considered.
Some, mainly third party, scheme administrators try to charge for providing any extra information over and above the statutory data required to be handed out upon request, such as for a transfer value statement. Personally, I think that’s wrong. Always have, always will. The cost should have been included in the original tender for the administrative services but that’s too simple.
It seems a shame that we missed an excellent opportunity when there was the pension mis-selling review. Regulators (SIB at the time, the forerunner to the FSA) produced ‘standard’ data gathering forms which were very detailed and acted as templates for the number crunchers doing the figurative analysis. Some scheme adopted these forms or adapted them for future use.
In any walk of like ‘information is king’ and that’s never truer than in retirement planning. So, somehow, something will have to give if scheme members are to be able to request information in the detail that they (or more likely, their advisers) may require. Otherwise, the FSA and Government can bleat all it likes about financial education or ‘money guidance’, but it’s of little use if meaningful and comprehensive retirement information is neither readily nor cost effectively available. See:
