APRA points to mandate as reason for YFYS pass/fail result
A Parliamentary Committee has asked the prudential regulator why it will not release full results on the superannuation performance test, given exams given to students would provide more feedback to improve.
Labor MP, Dr Andrew Leigh, asked the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) why the MySuper performance test results which were released at the end of August were only a pass or fail.
“Obviously there was some underlying score you developed and then at some stage you decided there was going to be a cut-off, but you didn’t tell Australians what the funds scored you just told us whether the funds passed or failed,” Leigh said.
“It seems if you were interested in improvements, you would provide feedback to funds in the same way tests provide feedback to students,” Leigh said.
“Students aren’t just told if they passed or failed they are told what score they get and that allows them to improve next year. Why didn’t you publish the scores?”
APRA said the funds were aware of the underlying methodology and where they stood in terms of the results.
Margaret Cole, APRA executive board member, said: “We do want to drive improvements and there was a huge amount of work that went into the publication of the test, as you might imagine.
“We were very concerned to deliver the test on time, accurately and with integrity, and the mandate we were given under the legislation was to publish a pass or fail.
“I understand the issue has been raised over publishing more information and we will go back and look at that. It is our intention as we move forward to publish that sort of information. We will bring that together with our next publication of the heatmap later in the year.”
APRA said the timing of heatmap was likely to be in November or December.
However, the pass or fail only result was similar to the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) exam which also only gave a pass or fail result. Advisers have said the feedback given by FASEA was not sufficient to help them improve.
AUTHOR
Chris Dastoor
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