Quality assurance of pension calculator tool
GAD has completed a quality assurance exercise on an online pension calculator tool. It's from Money Helper and it helps calculate people’s likely retirement income.
The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) has completed a quality assurance (QA) exercise on a pension calculator tool.
The online tool is provided as part of the guidance offered by Money Helper (formerly the Money Advice Service) and it calculates people’s likely retirement income.
Quality Assurance
Modelling is essential to work in government. It is important that appropriate assumptions and methodologies are adopted and that models are fit for the intended purpose.
Successful QA exercises can provide confidence in these areas for models across a range of disciplines.
GAD has used its expertise in QA work to ensure policy and decision making are based on robust modelling.
Checking and reviewing
The QA work in this instance was designed to reassure Money Helper that the pension calculator tool is working as expected. The GAD team:
- checked if the tool is accurate and consistent with the documented methodology
- reviewed the methodology, by checking if it’s still suitable since the initial development and consistent with the Financial Conduct Authority’s conduct of business rules
- undertook user testing to improve the experience for people who are using the tool
Provides confidence
As a result of the QA exercise, the GAD team found the tool was largely fit for purpose. The QA exercise provides confidence to Money Helper that it can be used by the public on their website.
We provided some suggested ways to improve the tool which Money Helper is intending to action.
Providing assurance
GAD actuary Chris Witney led on the project. He said: “It’s great to provide assurance to clients that their models are fit for purpose and give confidence in their future use.
“Actuaries are well suited to quality assurance work. This is because of the review process we undertake as standard for actuarial work.”