PENSIONS
The pensions dashboard: a progress update
Henry Tapper, chief executive officer for AgeWage, updates us as to how the project on the much-anticipated pensions dashboard is currently progressing
T he government has many pension initiatives on the go, but the one that has attracted significant attention is that of the pensions dashboard. We like the idea of having a pension finding service that allows us to see all our pensions in one place. We worry that we’ve forgotten pots of money and, for many of us, that will certainly be the case. Back in 2018, the Pension Policy Institute estimated that we’d collectively lost £20 billion – it’s likely to be even more today, especially as many of us are automatically enrolled into pensions without noticing where our payroll deductions are going. The problem is that we were promised this dashboard would be ready three years ago and we’re still waiting for something to download on our phones, PCs and Macs. This is a progress report, not from the people who are managing the pensions dashboard project, but from someone who desperately wants to see the introduction of the pensions dashboard. The key date for dashboard delivery is known as the DAP or ‘dashboards available point’. That’s the day when the Pensions Dashboard Program (PDP) considers that most people can find enough information from a pension search to consider the dashboard ‘good enough’. Obviously, this won’t mean that some people won’t find everything they want, but this is a case of perfect being the enemy of good. The PDP is carrying out testing to find how near to perfect the dashboard must be to go live. Technical activity The PDP is in its develop and test phase, which started in September 2021 and runs through to summer 2022. It incorporates the discovery phase with Capgemini and Origo and initial (alpha) testing. PDP has chosen to work with Aviva, Bud and Moneyhub as potential
dashboard providers during its initial test phase. The three organisations will help refine the onboarding process and develop technical standards. We like the idea of having a pension finding service that allows us to see all our pensions in one place Timelines The Pensions Dashboards Working Group at The Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) has published initial guidance on the choice of data matching convention schemes must make, ahead of their compliance with the upcoming pensions dashboards legislation. What this means is that PDP is on track for their delivery timeline. This has the DAP in 2023 and business as usual for pensions dashboards in 2024. Delivering five years late is about average for a large government infrastructure project. Some lost time occurred because of delays in the enabling legislation which formed part of the Pensions Schemes Act 2021. The Bill was debated throughout the pandemic period and met with strong opposition in the Lords, where several peers expressed concern that the dashboard could be misused by scammers and unscrupulous advisers. There has been extensive argument (primarily among actuaries) about the way in which pensions and pension pots are projected into the future. More recently, there has been concern from public sector pensions that whatever
is displayed will be changed by McCloud, guaranteed minimum pension equalisation and various other pension disputes. The PDP to produce a ‘not for profit’ dashboard My progress report wouldn’t be complete without a hat tip to the team at the PDP who work tirelessly, producing regular newsletters, which are easy to read and genuinely informative. The PDP will deliver a first ‘not for profit’ dashboard to be run by the Money and Pensions Service and other commercial dashboards will follow. These dashboards will show people just about everything other than pensions in payment and will do so at no cost to the user. They will be of great help to people approaching retirement, who will be able to use them to: ● plan ahead ● combine pension pots ● select how they turn pots to pensions ● choose how their pensions will pay them a wage in retirement. They will help younger people avoid ‘pot proliferation’, by enabling them to combine pots, thus avoiding the erosion of pots due to unnecessary charges and untended investments. They should also help people feel more in control of their retirement finances, allowing them to better plan for how and when they’re going to retire. This may mean working longer, saving harder or simply settling for less, but at least people will have the information available to help in making those decisions. Having campaigned for pension dashboards since they were first mooted 20 years ago, I have a reasonable expectation of seeing them in my working lifetime. As I’m increasingly referred to as an ‘industry veteran’, that provides some comfort. n
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 80 | May 2022
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