Pensions dashboards timeframes updated
A recent government announcement has restarted the pensions dashboards programme.
What are pensions dashboards?
Pensions dashboards are digital services that will show people their pensions information in one place online. Savers will enter a few details and see information on any relevant pension pots they hold, as well as information about their state pension.
The Money and Pensions Service is creating a central pensions dashboard, and in time there may also be other commercial dashboards available.
These days, people often have lots of jobs during their career. The average UK worker has 11 different pension pots by the time they retire, making these savings hard to track.
The Pensions Policy Institute and the Association of British Insurers estimate there’s around £26.6 billion worth of ‘lost’ pension pots in the UK.
So pensions dashboards have massive potential to help retirement planning and boost financial wellbeing.
The UK government’s Pensions Dashboards Programme is responsible for creating the digital architecture for pensions dashboards, and this work is ongoing. But the programme has experienced a bumpy journey so far.
What’s been happening with pensions dashboards?
The pensions dashboards programme began in 2015 and was due to launch in 2019, but was then pushed back until August 2023. In March 2023, pensions minister Laura Trott paused the programme, saying that more time was needed due to the technical complexities of the project.
Within the industry some saw this as a sensible move. Others took a dim view of another delay, and questioned whether the programme would ever be completed. But in June 2023, Trott made a new announcement – the programme was back on.
Under the previous plan, schemes had individual connection deadlines. The largest schemes would connect first, giving smaller schemes more time.
Under the new regulations, all schemes are required to connect by October 2026. And a ‘staging timeline’ will be set out in guidance for all schemes in scope – that’s any scheme with more than 100 active or deferred members.
What are the challenges with pensions dashboards?
Data is a critical element of any pension scheme. And the success of pensions dashboards relies on highly accurate member information, such as surnames and National Insurance numbers.
Schemes must use these data fields to match ‘find requests’ from users of dashboards against all the records they hold. Crucially, schemes must be confident that this data is up to standard before they connect – a lot of ongoing work is needed to achieve this.
To put the scale of this task into perspective, payments company Moneyhub have estimated there are around 100 million pension entitlements, and over 50 years of pensions data to be made available to savers.
Procrastination is another potential challenge. Without a compulsory staging timeline in place, some industry experts have warned there could be a potential ‘capacity crunch’ if pension schemes leave it too late to prepare for pensions dashboards.
What’s the outlook for pensions dashboards?
Pensions dashboards will be a huge step forward for the pensions industry. They will help to bring pensions into the digital age, where people can easily access all the pension pots that they’ve worked so hard for.
But as well as overcoming the technical and data challenges, everyone connected with the dashboards programme must collaborate.
Schemes must work with their administrators, data specialists and technology providers. And the government and regulators must also work with these groups – and each other – to make the 2026 deadline a reality.
Sources
Pensions dashboard: 5 things you need to know Which
Pensions dashboards: A new frontier or a dead end? Money Marketing
PASA announce Data Matching Convention (DMC) Guidance PASA website
Pension dashboards face potential ‘capacity crunch’ Pensions Age