High-quality data underpins every aspect of effective pension scheme administration. From ensuring benefits are paid accurately to enabling reliable member communication, maintaining clean and current data is essential.
For Gwynedd Pension Fund, this focus aligned with its own ambition to strengthen the integrity of its member records. The Fund recognised that accurate contact details and up-to-date records are not only crucial for compliance but also for maintaining trust and engagement with members.
By taking a proactive approach to reviewing and improving its data, the Fund set out to address inconsistencies and ensure it was well-prepared for the evolving digital pensions landscape.
The Fund discovered that a significant portion of its deferred members had moved house without updating their details, creating gaps in records and making it difficult to maintain contact or issue important communications.
While overall data scores were strong, address quality remained an area for improvement under The Pension Regulator’s (TPR) Common Data requirements and with pensions dashboards on the horizon, the Fund recognised an opportunity to improve its data and acted quickly to address issues.
By taking proactive action, it aimed to mitigate against any compliance risks, avoid costly remediation work later and ensure readiness for the dashboards environment.
As a long-term customer, Gwynedd Pension Fund initially received a free data readiness report as part of its preparation for connecting to pensions dashboards through Heywood’s ISP service.
This report highlighted areas for improvement, particularly around address accuracy and deferred member data. Building on those insights, the Fund turned to Heywood’s data cleansing and mortality tracing services to strengthen its deferred member records.
The Fund primarily focused on address tracing, supported by email and phone number enrichment and forensic tracing through a trusted third-party partner.
This layered approach meant that if standard methods couldn’t locate a member, deeper forensic searches could be carried out, significantly improving match rates.
Heywood’s team worked closely with Gwynedd to design a targeted cleanse for deferred members - the group most likely to have become “gone away”. The process was automated via secure monthly file transfers, with updated records fed directly into the pension administration platform, Altair. The Fund also used phone numbers provided through the cleanse, following a clear three-attempt verification process before marking any numbers as invalid.
The project delivered clear and measurable results:
The forensic tracing service proved particularly valuable, allowing the Fund to locate members who would otherwise have remained uncontactable.
The project also delivered benefits across teams, particularly for the Deferred into Payments team, which reported smoother processes and greater confidence in member data.
With automated monthly tracing and mortality monitoring now embedded as part of business-as-usual, Gwynedd Pension Fund continues to maintain high data quality standards.
The Fund has strengthened confidence in its member data, enabling communications to be delivered accurately and securely while supporting greater efficiency and readiness for the upcoming pensions dashboards launch.
“Heywood displayed impeccable professionalism and exceptional insight throughout the Data Cleanse project. Heywood’s Data Cleanse and Mortality solution has allowed us both to resolve longstanding data issues and gives us assurance that we are proactively managing our data quality on an ongoing basis.”
- Systems Officer, Gwynedd Pension Fund
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Pensions Dashboards
Data Services
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