Publication of DWP consultation into regulations for pensions dashboards, plus PDP standards

Today, January 31 2022, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published its consultation, Pensions Dashboards: consultation on the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022. This is a significant step towards the realisation of pensions dashboards, as the consultation sets out the draft regulations on the key duties for occupational pension schemes to participate in pensions dashboards. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will consult on parallel proposals for personal pension providers within the next few weeks.

DWP will run the Pensions Dashboards: consultation on the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 for six weeks, from Monday 31 January until Sunday 13 March.

The secondary legislation laid out in the consultation will introduce duties on occupational schemes to connect into the pensions dashboards ecosystem, receive find requests, undertake matching, register pension identifiers for any found pensions and to return pension information in response to view requests.

The draft regulations also set out what the duties will be on dashboard providers, with duties to present the pensions information that occupational schemes and DWP (for State Pension information) will return to dashboards as it is, without changing it and in accordance with the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) design standards.

PDP information on standards to support the consultation

The draft regulations make provision for mandatory standards, associated with pensions dashboards, delegating authority to PDP to set those standards.

To support stakeholders wishing to respond to the Pensions Dashboards: consultation on the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022, PDP has published information about the scope of our standards and how we’ll go about setting them, with some indicative examples of what the standards could contain. While PDP expects the standards to iterate to incorporate learnings from our ongoing test phases, this should provide sufficient information to respond effectively to the consultation.

The publications include:

• data usage guide
• design standards scope
• reporting standards scope
• technical standards
• a guide to the code of connection – which will include security, service and operational standards

Webinars to provide additional information

DWP will also be hosting a series of webinars to explore a range of topics related to the consultation, to assist stakeholders with their responses. The panel for these webinars will include representatives from DWP, PDP, the FCA and The Pensions Regulator (TPR).

1. Consultation overview
   • Tuesday 8 February 2022
   • 10:00-11:30
2. Delivering and using pensions dashboards
   • Thursday 10 February 2022
   • 10:00-11:30
3. The pensions industry – getting ready for dashboards
   • Thursday 17 February 2022
   • 10:00-11:30
4. Pensions dashboards retirement values – helping consumers to understand their income in retirement
   • Thursday 24 February 2022
   • 10:00-11:30

Register for webinars