As part of its project to develop new actuarial standards, the Board for Actuarial Standards (the BAS) has today published a consultation paper setting out proposals for a generic standard on data.

Data is a crucial ingredient in the calculations that arise in actuarial work, and it is important that the data used is as reliable as possible and thoroughly understood. The consultation paper sets out the principles that the BAS believes should apply to the use of data in actuarial work and the rationale for them. Among the principles are:

• A set of data checks should be constructed and performed in order to determine whether or not, taken overall, the data is sufficiently accurate and complete to meet the needs of the user;
• Margins should not be incorporated into actuarial information to compensate for inaccuracy or incompleteness of the data unless specifically required. If margins are incorporated, their effect should be separately identified.

Following the consultation, the BAS will develop an Exposure Draft of a principles-based standard that will apply across many areas of actuarial work.

Commenting on the publication, Paul Seymour, Chairman of the BAS, said:

“The significance of data issues has grown in recent years with the information revolution. Poor data is an obvious and ever-present threat to the quality of actuarial output – “garbage in, garbage out”. Our aim is to ensure that information provided by actuaries to users is of high quality.”

Copies of the Consultation Paper can be downloaded from the BAS’s website at http://www.frc.org.uk/bas/publications.

1. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting confidence in corporate reporting and governance. Its functions are exercised principally by its operating bodies (the Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing Practices Board, the Board for Actuarial Standards, the Financial Reporting Review Panel, the Professional Oversight Board and the Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board) and by the FRC Board. The Committee on Corporate Governance assists the Board in its work on corporate governance.
2. The Board for Actuarial Standards has a primary objective of promoting competence and transparency of actuarial practice by establishing and improving actuarial technical standards and ensuring that they are coherent, consistent and comprehensive.
3. All media enquiries should be addressed to Paul Seymour, Chairman of the Board for Actuarial Standards, 020 7492 2328 or email at p.seymour@frc.org.uk.