This is the second part of our article on pensions dashboards where we provide more information on how to get dashboard ready.  The first part article can be found here Trustees and Pension Managers: Are you dashboard ready and what does that mean?.

Decide how to connect

The Department for Work and Pensions (‘DWP’) recently issued guidance setting out a staged timetable for connection to the pensions dashboards ecosystem. All schemes and providers in scope are legally required to be connected and be ready to respond to requests for pensions information by 31 October 2026 at the latest.

There are two ways to connect:

• Build your own direct connection using an in-house solution; or
• Using the services of an Integrated Service Provider (ISP) or your third party administrator (‘TPA’).

Building a direct connection that meets the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) standards is a significant undertaking and, if you are considering this approach, we encourage you to engage with the PDP as soon as possible.

Choose the matching criteria and get the data ready

When an individual uses a pensions dashboard, certain personal data (known as ‘find’ data) will be shared to help determine if your scheme has a pension for them. Before the find data is shared, an identity service will verify the individual’s identity using data elements such as name and date of birth.

Discuss and agree with your administrator the find data to use to match scheme members to their pensions. This is called the ‘matching criteria’ and decisions should be based on the level of confidence you have in your scheme data being complete, up to date and accurate and digitally searchable for dashboard purposes.

If the scheme’s ‘matching’ data is not reliable, there is a risk of returning data for the wrong person or failing to find a member who has an entitlement to a pension. It is important to work with your administrator to assess the quality of your scheme’s personal data and, if necessary, put in place an improvement plan to ensure the data is ready (in time).  

Trustees will be required to keep a record of the matching criteria for at least six years. There is no requirement to record the criteria used for each individual search.

Requests for pensions information  

When an individual receives a positive match from the pensions dashboard confirming they have a scheme pension, they can request to ‘view’ information about it. View data includes the scheme name, membership dates, administrator contact details along with how much pension the member has built up already and how much they may have when they retire. This pension information is known as ‘value’ data and is different in respect of money purchase and non-money purchase benefits.   

For money purchase ‘value’ data includes an accrued pot value, an annualised income value ignoring future contributions / growth and a projected annualised income value.

Value data for non-money purchase depends on the member status. For active members, it is an accrued value at the illustration date and a projected value for service to normal retirement age ignoring salary increases. For deferred members, it is an accrued value revalued to the illustration date.   

Administrators will need to be ready to process view requests at scale and must ensure that the value data is calculated in line with legal requirements and is sufficiently recent. Value data must either be provided:

• immediately if it is based on a statement provided to a member in the last 13 months, or a calculation made for the member in the last 12 months (for example if there was a previous request made on a dashboard)
• within 3 working days for DC benefits and within 10 working days for DB and hybrid benefits

Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs)

Value data must include information on AVCs. If you scheme has AVCs held with external providers, there are three options to make the data available on pensions dashboards:

• the scheme obtains AVC data from the provider and sends along with main scheme data
• the AVC data is sent separately by the provider without generating a pension link (this means the main scheme and AVC data will be displayed separately on the dashboard)
• the AVC data is sent separately by the provider with a generated pension link (this means the main scheme and AVC data will be displayed together on the dashboard)

You will need to work with your administrators and providers to understand these options in more detail and the pros and cons of each.

Administration readiness

Your administrator should confirm how they intend to meet the value data requirements outlined in the Requests for pensions information section above. Options include running the calculations in bulk and posting to the dashboard annually or responding to a request on an individual basis within the prescribed timescale.

Your scheme’s matching criteria can include ‘possible’ results where there is a close match of some pension data.  For example, last name and National Insurance number match but date of birth doesn’t. In the case of a possible match, the individual will receive a message that they may have a pension in your scheme along with the administrator contact details. Your administrator will need to have a process in place to manage possible match enquiries.

Your administrator will need to have a plan in place for managing queries in relation to view data on the pensions dashboard and be ready for a potential increase in non-dashboard requests e.g. requests to retire or transfer out.

It is also important to agree a communications strategy with your administrator that covers both the lead up to pensions dashboards being made available to the public and in the months after.

How Go Pensions can help

If your administrator does not have capacity to support you, alternative providers are available.  Do get in touch if you would like to discuss market capacity.  Go can help with managing tender opportunities or a review of your administrator’s dashboard strategy.

Further information

PASA issued ‘connection ready’ pensions dashboards guidance which can be found here PASA releases connection ready dashboards Guidance – The Pensions Administration Standards Association (pasa-uk.com)

The Pensions Dashboards (Amendment) Regulations 2023 set out requirements for pension providers and schemes. The regulations also empower the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), through the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), to set dashboards standards.

The PDP standards relate to the practical operation of pensions dashboards services and the digital infrastructure needed to support them. The latest draft versions of the standards were updated in May 2024.