Part of the Department for Work and Pensions. April A guide to combined pension forecasts

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1 Part of the Department for Work and Pensions April 2004 A guide to combined pension forecasts

2 This free service allows your pension scheme members to see forecasts of both their State Pension and private pension together for the first time. This means that they will be able to make betterinformed pension choices when planning for their future.

3 If you are a pension provider, for example a company which provides an occupational pension, a private pension company, a trustee or an administrator (but not an agent for a pension company, or an agent for a trustee or administrator), then this guide is for you. It explains what combined pension forecasts are and how we can arrange for you to provide them to your pension scheme members or employees. What are combined pension forecasts? Combined pension forecasting involves us giving you details of the current State Pension that your scheme member has built up at the time of the forecast and a projected State Pension that has been worked out up to State Pension age. We provide this information to you free of charge. You include it in your stakeholder, occupational or personal statements that you send out to your scheme members. It is straightforward to register with us to provide combined pension forecasts. We will guide you through the process and support you when you begin issuing them. The privacy and security of your scheme members data is as important to us as it is to you and we have designed the service to protect this. What are the benefits? Combined pension forecasts should help people to make better-informed pension choices when planning for their future by: giving them clear information in a single statement about the income they may expect at retirement from both the State and your scheme; and raising awareness of the importance of having suitable pension arrangements in place How has the service developed? This free service was launched in October 2001 following successful exercises working in partnership with private and public sector employers and pension providers. These showed that 98 per cent of members who gave feedback about the combined pension forecast said they found it useful. We now have over 700 companies who have either said they are interested or are providing combined pension forecasts to their scheme members. What do I have to do to provide combined pension forecasts? This guide explains what you need to do to begin issuing combined pension forecasts. If you need more information, or you would like to sign up to provide combined pension forecasts, contact one of our Customer Account Managers on ,from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. 1

4 Who will provide support? Once you have registered, a dedicated Customer Account Manager (who will be your main point of contact) and the processing team will work with you, provide support and answer any questions you may have. They can help you with recruitment, testing, processing and maintaining records. They can also advise you how long it will take from registration to issuing combined pension forecasts. Timescales depend on several things, for example the number of members in your scheme. How do combined pension forecasts work? The process of producing combined pension forecasts is separated into six stages. Registration Data testing Consent Sending your scheme members data to us Receiving the forecast data and sending out the combined pension forecast statements Dealing with enquiries What happens next? 1 Register with us Fill in the application form If we have sent you an application form with this guide, you can register using the form. If not, or if you want advice about filling in the form, you can get in touch with us on If you prefer, one of our Customer Account Managers will visit to discuss the details with you. Part of this process is to find out about the kind of scheme you are responsible for and to discuss the various media types used to exchange data, as well as giving contact details for technical and customer enquiries. Send off the application form Applications should be sent in by: private or occupational pension providers; or management companies who look after different schemes (but not an agent for a management company). If your company looks after more than one scheme, we will need just one contact name and number. 2

5 Confirming the Registration Agreement The registration process is finished when we issue a Registration Agreement which will set out: consent procedures; data exchange and test; volumes and timing; handling rejections; statements, or communications and enquiries; combined pension forecast activity plan; and quality standards for you and us. Once the Registration Agreement between you and the Customer Account Manager has been agreed, we will ask you to send us a small sample of data so that we can carry out compatibility checks. This data test is a vital part of the registration process. Until the test has been carried out successfully, your Registration Agreement will not be valid and you will not be able to go live. Further information is available in the combined pension forecast technical guide CPF3. 2 Getting the customer s consent Scheme members who want to opt out Under Social Security (Disclosure of State Pension Information) Regulations 2000, all scheme members should be given the chance to say that they do not want their State Pension information passed to you for a combined forecast. You should send an opt-out form to each member to let them do this they only have to reply to you if they do not want a combined pension forecast. This could be included in the next round of statements or, in the case of occupational pension schemes, with payslips, to keep processing costs down. We will send you an example of suggested wording for the opt-out form after you have registered. The consent process only needs to be carried out once for each scheme member. For new scheme members this process can be done at the time they join. Scheme members can opt out at any time. Keep a record of those who want to opt out You must keep a record of the scheme members or employees who have opted out so you may have to change the information on your existing databases. It is important that you do not send forecast requests to us for customers who have said they want to opt out. Remember Your members are agreeing to their personal data being passed to us only for the purpose of supplying State Pension forecast figures. You cannot use the information for any other reason. If possible, you should use the wording in the example that we will send you when you register, as it contains all the necessary information to meet legislation. 3

6 3 Send us your scheme member data (CPF Bulk Request File) Data conditions Once you know which members want a combined pension forecast and you have passed your data test, you can send their personal details to us. As part of the registration process, we will agree with you a date and your preferred type of media for supplying scheme members or employees details. The details we need are as follows. Surname or family name First name Sex Date of birth National Insurance number Policy or scheme number (optional) We will accept customer data in the following types of media. You can discuss these options with your Customer Account Manager. Electronic data interchange (EDI) Secure file transfer CD-ROM 4mm DAT tape DDS1 or DDS2 specification inch floppy disk If the details for any customer on the request file are different from ours, for example, there is a different date of birth or National Insurance number, we will not be able to match the information to an account on our computer system and will not be able to work out a pension forecast for these customers. You should only include the scheme or policy number if you need this information yourself to match up the forecast data on the reply file with your own records. Data-matching conditions We will match your data to our records using the following conditions. First three letters of the surname Initials National Insurance number Date of birth 4

7 4 Receive the forecast data (CPF Bulk Reply File) We will find the National Insurance records for each customer and work out the current pension earned so far and the projected State Pension at State Pension age. We will collect and return these to you using the type of media you have agreed with us. Forecast data will be shown as weekly, four-weekly, monthly, three-monthly or yearly figures depending on the needs of each scheme provider. We will send the data within the timescales set out in the Registration Agreement. 5 Issue combined pension forecast statements You will send out your statements in the way that you normally do, but with the extra State Pension information included on the statement. For example, you may send all of your statements out on the same day every year, or you may send them out on a monthly programme. There is some standard wording which you must include to act in line with legislation. If you would like to change this wording, you must agree this with us before you issue it. We will issue you with an example statement, showing the ways in which this information can be presented after you register with us. We will also supply you with as many copies of leaflet CPF5 as you need. The CPF5 provides answers to basic questions and should prevent you receiving enquiries about the State Pension forecast. 6 Follow-up enquiries Scheme members questions about State Pension entitlement can be handled by our contact centre. You can put the contact centre phone number on the statement. We will provide a leaflet for you to give scheme members and employees with their statement. Leaflet CPF5 also provides various phone numbers for scheme members questions. We will give you the name and number of your Customer Account Manager, to help you through all stages after registration. To sign up, or find out more, phone us on

8 For more copies of this leaflet you can phone You can also access this leaflet on the internet at ISBN: Crown copyright Produced by The Pension Service, part of the Department for Work and Pensions Printed in the UK April 2004 CPF2 General enquiries (Textphone users call )