Matching overtakes DB value data accuracy as biggest dashboard concern for schemes

Sackers announced today the results of it’s most recent webinar survey* showing the biggest concern for schemes when it comes to dashboards is ensuring the matching process runs successfully (26.37%), followed closely by providing accurate DB value data (25.27%).

This is a significant change to 2022 when the same question was asked and providing accurate DB value data was the biggest concern by some margin at 40%, with data matching sitting at 19%.

Sackers’ partner, Emily Forrest, commented: “Dashboards have become the hot topic of the summer, with schemes and their administrators needing to mobilise at pace in order to get ready for connection. For many schemes, the DWP’s guidance will mean connecting in 2025.

“The fact that DB value data has been overtaken by matching as the biggest concern for schemes is not a huge surprise. It probably reflects the fact that schemes have started taking action and are seeing first-hand how challenging the data matching workstream will be.  Legislation does not dictate what matching criteria should be, rather it is for trustees to decide their own matching policy and which data fields to use for matching purposes.  Matching criteria have to be right for each scheme and trustees can only take this decision once they understand how confident they can be in their scheme data and its ability to deliver accurate matching.”

Forrest continued: “We expect matching to be one of the most high-stakes aspects of dashboards when they go live, with schemes likely to receive millions of ‘find requests’ in the first few months after launch.  Improving data quality and fully understanding the decisions about matching need to be a priority within schemes’ dashboards projects.”

Forrest concluded: “Trustees should be setting the governance framework now for getting from here to connection and beyond.  Trustees will be expected to have a firm handle on all the decisions they’ve made along the way and maintain a clear audit trail, including their decisions around matching. We would encourage schemes to consider having a delegated working group to take some of the burden.  Engage with your administrators. Get on top of data cleansing and work out your matching criteria, and don’t forget the background elements such as updating your privacy notice to cover dashboards, data protection impact assessments and cyber security policies, as these are often elements that can get overlooked in large scale projects.”

* Based on 91 respondents representing trustees and employers of both DC and DB schemes.