What are Pensions Dashboards?
Pensions dashboards are digital on-line services where users will be able to see their pension information in one place on their smart phone, tablet or desktop browser.
Pensions dashboards will allow individuals to see information on all the pensions they have built up together in one secure place. It will include all their private pensions (workplace and personal), any public sector pensions and information on their state pension. It will not, however, show pensions already being paid.
Dashboards aim to help users plan for retirement by:
- Finding their pensions and reconnecting them with any lost pension pots.
- Understanding the value of their pensions in terms of an estimated retirement income.
When does my scheme have to connect?
All schemes with 100 or more relevant members must be connected to pensions dashboards by 31 October 2026.
A relevant member is an active, deferred or pension credit member. Pensioners are not relevant members.
Guidance setting out a staging timeline is expected to be published in the first half of 2024. However, the Government Department for Work and Pensions (‘DWP’) has released informal staging dates to third party administrators (TPAs) already. The staging timeline will indicate when schemes (by size and type) are scheduled to connect. It is anticipated the timeline will cover a 15-month period from April 2025 to July 2026.
Separate from the staging timeline is the Dashboards Available Point (DAP). This is the date on which pensions dashboards will be made available to the public. A scheme connection date is not the same as the DAP. DWP have stated full public access could be before October 2026.
What happens if I choose not to connect?
Trustees are ultimately responsible for ensuring that their scheme is compliant with the pensions dashboard requirements. The Pensions Regulator has been given new powers to issue compliance notices and penalties to trustees if they fail to comply. These include the option to issue penalties of up to £5,000 to individuals and up to £50,000 in other cases for any instance of a single compliance breach.
What do Trustees need to do to comply?
You cannot connect without the support of your administrators. You will need to work with your administrator to carry out the following:
- Register your scheme with the Money and Pensions Service (‘MaPS’) and connect by a specific deadline.
- Receive members search requests and match members to their pensions (‘find requests’).
- Provide members with information about their pension through the dashboard of their choosing (‘view requests’).
- Co-operate with MaPS when preparing to connect, maintain records and report certain information to The Pensions Regulator (‘TPR’) and MaPS.
How your administrator can help
We encourage trustees to make contact with their administrators and ‘get in the queue early’ to get an informal update on when their scheme is likely to connect.
An informal staging timeline has been released to administrators and, therefore, they should have been able to plan resourcing.
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 Pensions can help with managing tender opportunities or a review of your administrator’s dashboard strategy.
Further information
PASA recently 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 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 published in November 2022.
More to come soon – look out for part two of this article providing more information on how to get dashboard ready.