David Reid Published by: David Reid  

Delivering the Pensions Dashboards Programme presents a unique opportunity to provide a product that will benefit UK pension holders, allowing them to access their pensions information online, securely and all in one place. But accessing this information requires connecting the multitude of UK pension providers, schemes and trusts to the dashboards ecosystem.

With over 32,000 pension providers in scope for participating in pensions dashboards, there is no practical way of connecting every provider simultaneously. So we will connect data providers in stages, to create a smooth process and minimise operational risk. The purpose of our latest call for input, is to gain feedback on our proposals for the order and timing of these stages.

We are asking pension providers, schemes, third-party administrators and software providers, consumer groups and other interested stakeholders for their feedback on these proposals. This is your opportunity to influence the development of regulations and rules around staging.

Read the full proposals and respond to the call for input on staging:

Call for input on staging

Developing the proposals

In developing the staging proposals, we have tried to balance the need to move at pace, with ensuring the approach is deliverable. Consumers, quite reasonably, want to view their pensions information as soon as possible and research indicates a low tolerance for an incomplete dashboards service. However, industry needs time to prepare, regulators require the capacity to cope with increased regulatory demands and we need to test and refine the digital architecture itself.

We worked together with our delivery partners, the Department for Work and Pension (DWP) and the regulators at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR), to develop the proposals. Ultimately it will be DWP and FCA that will create the regulations and rules around staging but the evidence from this call for input will feed into the development of proposals for formal consultation.

We have drawn from a wide range of evidence in putting together the proposals, including data from TPR’s registry, FCA retirement stock income data, PDP research and industry feedback from our call for input on data in Summer 2020. We also incorporated feedback from our Steering Group, with its industry and consumer representatives.

We hope that we’ve achieved the right balance between pace, industry and operational deliverability but if you disagree, this is the time to let us know.

We will be running two separate webinars on 8 and 9 June, to provide further information and clarification around the proposals. Register and find out more on our events page.

An early indicator of staging dates

The staging proposals are subject to change, in response to the feedback we receive. However, they should still be a useful early indicator to data providers (pension providers, schemes, third-party administrators and integrated service providers) as to when they are likely to need to connect to the dashboards ecosystem. And as such, they are a reminder of the importance of starting to get dashboard-ready well in advance of that time.

Our data providers hub provides all the latest information to support pension providers large and small in preparing to connect to dashboards. In particular, our steps to connection provides a breakdown of what data providers should be doing to prepare during each phase of the programme.

The call for input will be open until Friday 9 July. We’re looking forward to receiving your feedback.