PENSIONS
Pensions dashboards: what are the latest updates and how do they impact employers and payroll?
You can connect with Richard on LinkedIn here: https://ow.ly/fapK50VA2iy.
Richard Smith, Independent Pensions Dashboards Consultant, provides an update on the delivery of pensions dashboards, when citizen testing is due to start and advises on what employers and payroll teams can start to think about now
L ast year, in the March issue of Professional magazine 1 , I explained what pensions dashboards are and how they will revolutionise Britons’ planning for retirement. This article (part two) is a follow-up on delivery progress. Next year, in 2026, part three of the series will hopefully cover the anticipated launch of the first dashboard to the UK public. Big developments across the ecosystem Over the last year, there have been big developments in all three “layers” of the ecosystem: l the “display” of pension data on front- end dashboards themselves (at the “top” of the hourglass in the simplified diagram in Figure 1) l the “retrieval” of data by the government’s central digital architecture (CDA) (the “middle”) l the “supply” of data by pension schemes and providers (the “bottom” of the hourglass). You can see how these layers work together in the following short video: https://ow.ly/Y4TO50VA1mo. Front-end dashboards As anticipated in last year’s article,15 firms have now publicly said they intend on operating a private sector dashboard 2 in due course. However, following Labour’s win at the 2024 general election, the new Pensions Minister announced to Parliament 3 that the Government’s MoneyHelper dashboard will be launched first. So, the current focus is on the Government service, rather than more useful, private dashboards.
The government’s CDA Throughout 2024, and into 2025, the Government’s Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) at the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) – an arm’s length body of the Department for Work and Pensions – has been working with about 20 volunteer participant pension data providers 4 . PDP has been working with these firms to enable them to make application programming interface connections with the CDA, so that the data providers hold on each of their members’ / customers’ pensions is digitally searchable when an individual chooses to use a dashboard. Data connections by pension schemes and providers Government has published a staged guidance timetable with dates 5 by which different pension schemes and providers must have connected their data to the dashboards ecosystem. For example, by the time you read this, in June 2025, all the following must be connected: l all defined contribution master trusts
with 1,000 or more active and deferred members l all private sector defined benefit schemes with 5,000+ active / deferred members l all Financial Conduct Authority- regulated pension providers with 5,000+ active / deferred customers. The next big ‘spike’ of connections comes in October 2025, when all public service pension schemes must be connected to the ecosystem. What’s next? Data through 2025 and then 2026 The data connection timeline continues through to September 2026. However, the vast majority of active / deferred pensions will be connected by the end of 2025. The connections during 2026 are of the ‘long tail’ of smaller schemes which have relatively few members. By 31 October 2026, all pension schemes and providers with 100+ active / deferred members or customers will be connected.
PROFESSI NAL in Payroll, Pensions and Reward
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June 2025 | Issue 111
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