UK - The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has appointed Capita Hartshead to carry out pension data cleansing and transition services.

Under the terms of the contract Capita will be expected to provide a number of services to ensure the data held by the PPF is correct, including the "identification of data items which are either missing data inconsistent with other data items or illogical data".

The PPF initiated its search for a provider to develop a framework agreement in October 2007, and the initial period for Capita's contract is expected to be four years after it was appointed over four other applicants.

In addition to identifying missing and incorrect data held within the PPF databases, Capita's duties will include prioritising data based on the impact to scheme administration, ascertain any incorrect pension entitlements and check Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) details, including, when necessary, calculating benefits for GMP equalisation.

The role also entails working with third-party administrator (TPA) systems, as Capita Hartshead is expected to upload the 'cleansed' data into a system which interacts with TPAs and to maintain an audit trail of all data changes and upload TPA systems once the data is 100% correct.

The start of a data cleansing operation follows the PPF's recent announcement that another four pension schemes had been transferred to the organisation in September, bringing the total number of schemes within the PPF to 61, which covers 18,957 members and results in average compensation of £4,700 per person per year.

Elsewhere, Oxfordshire County Council is seeking an independent financial adviser (IFA) to provide impartial advice to its £1bn pension fund.

The contract, valued at between £200,000 to £500,000, will last for an initial period of five years starting on 1 January 2009, and according to duties carried out by the existing financial adviser - A.F. Bushell - the successful candidate will be expected to review the investment activity during the past quarter and present an overview of the Fund's position in addition to outlining current and future investment market developments.

In April the pension fund revealed it intended to review its Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) strategy following a disappointing performance in which the value of the portfolio fell from £31.5m to £30.6m. (See earlier IPE article: Oxford reviews TAA after poor performance)

The closing date for submissions for the adviser role is 27 November 2008.

If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Nyree Stewart on + 44 (0)20 7261 4618 or email nyree.stewart@ipe.com