A year after the pensions dashboards programme was delayed in March 2023, progress is now being made on two areas of the dashboard delivery.
In March the Department for Work & Pensions published guidance setting out staggered deadlines for pension schemes and providers to connect to the dashboards ecosystem, and to be in a position to process ‘find’ and ‘view’ requests.
Two days later, the Financial Conduct Authority opened another consultation on its regulatory framework for firms operating a pensions dashboard.
“After the March 2023 reset announcement, the industry unsurprisingly put dashboard projects on hold,” says Anthony Rafferty, chief executive of Origo, which provides a service that facilitates connections to the dashboards ecosystem.
“We believe that the publication of the DWP guidance and the FCA consultation is very significant, as it should mean that providers’ plans are all restarted in short order, as there’s a lot of work to be done within relatively short timescales.”
Progress is also being made on commercial dashboards. Mark Horwood-James, managing director of personal finance technology at Moneyhub, a dashboard provider for the ‘alpha phase’ of the dashboard project, says private sector entities are already approaching the company about offering a dashboard.
Although the pieces are finally, albeit slowly, coming together, AJ Bell’s head of public policy, Rachel Vahey, also says it will be a “wasted effort” if not enough people know about pensions dashboards and use them.
“Encouraging pension providers, employers and others to offer a commercial dashboard is a key ingredient to its success,” Vahey says. “The FCA has to walk a fine line though.
“The regulatory environment has to be flexible enough to encourage a wide variety of firms to operate a dashboard, but it also has to be one that protects consumers from being scammed out of their pension savings.”
Connecting to the dashboards ecosystem: take two
For those who have been observing, or involved in, the development of dashboards, the DWP’s staggered timetable for connection will look familiar. Under the pensions dashboards regulations 2022, large and medium schemes were subject to deadlines ranging from August 2023 to October 2025.
“The original connection dates [before the reset] were set out in statute originally,” says Aegon’s head of pensions, Kate Smith. “If they’re in statute, you have to comply; and if you don't, there's going to be repercussions.
“But now they're set out in guidance, presumably because there wasn't enough time to do it in legislation. The problem with guidance is that it's not enforceable to the same level as it would be in statute.”
Nevertheless, the DWP’s guidance states it is a legal requirement for trustees or managers and pension scheme providers to “have regard to” its guidance. If they are unable to demonstrate how they have had regard to the guidance, this may result in enforcement action by the relevant regulator, it adds.
“From the conversations we’ve been having, scheme trustees actively want to comply with their scheme's 'connect by' date anyway,” says Horwood-James.
