
1. The competent institutions of the Member States (or designated competent institutions where there are several within a Member State) should take the measures necessary to ensure that data identified under point 5 can be collected and supplied.

2. This data should be supplied in January of each year, in respect of the preceding year to the Technical Commission, provided for under Article 117c of Regulation (EEC) No 574/72.

3. The Secretariat of the Technical Commission shall be charged with coordinating the collection of this data and, with the approval of the Technical Commission, preparing an annual summary for the Administrative Commission.

4. The data collected should concern only old-age pensions involving a claimant resident in another Member State and should show the following:

((a)) the reaction time of the investigating institution in the Member State of residence (that is the time taken by the investigating institution to inform the competent institution that a claim for a pension has been made to the latter institution). For the purposes of this Decision ‘investigating institution’ shall mean the organisation in the claimant's Member State of residence responsible for completing form E 202 whilst ‘competent institution’ means the organisation in the Member State which receives the completed E 202 and is responsible for processing the claim accordingly;
((b)) the time taken by the competent institution to process the claim (that is the time taken for the competent institution to issue a final decision);
((c)) the total processing time taken by the two Member States involved (that is the length of time the claimant had to wait for the final decision to be issued counting from the date at which the claim was first submitted to the investigating institution).
Note: The reference to ‘form E 202’ shall apply mutatis mutandis to the appropriate Structured Electronic Document (SED) when electronic exchanges under the EESSI project commence.
5. The actual data collected should comprise the following:

((a)) the mean, shortest and longest time taken during the preceding twelve months for old age pension claims to be sent by the investigating institution to the competent institution;
((b)) the mean, shortest and longest time taken during the preceding twelve months for the issuing of a final decision by the competent institution on an old-age pension where the claimant is living in another Member State;
((c)) a short commentary by the competent institution to situate the data in context and clarify the factors involved in the settlement of the shortest and longest claims;
((d)) a short explanation by the competent institution of the methodology used, whether there has been a sample or not, size of sample, period covered, total numbers of files examined, etc.

6. Where possible, data collection begins in January 2008 with a view to a first submission to the Technical Commission in January 2009.

7. Each Member State will present their data to the Technical Commission with a view to promoting exchange of experience and dissemination of best practice.

8. The system of collecting and using the data be reviewed at the end of every year and where necessary recommendations made for improvements.

9. This Decision shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 1 January 2008.

The Chair of the Administrative Commission
Jana LOVŠIN