Pensions Dashboards Programme sets out broad plans for future development

Commenting on today’s update, Chris Curry, Principal of the Pensions Dashboards Programme at MaPS, said:

“The vision of the Pensions Dashboards Programme could not be simpler – to enable individuals to access all their pensions information online, securely and all in one place, thereby supporting better planning for retirement and growing financial wellbeing.

“However, the delivery challenges underlying this vision are significant – even more so in the current circumstances. Delivering this valuable service for society will depend upon close collaboration across government, regulators and the pensions industry.

“The three documents that we’re publishing today are for information only.  We are not asking you to take any action now, but we will engage with stakeholders when the time is right. In the meantime, we will continue with our work to make pensions dashboards a reality.  

“Throughout the evolution of pensions dashboards, people have understandably wanted to know when they will be widely available for public use. Even when the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has decreased, timescales depend heavily on factors including technological developments and the progress of government legislation. We plan to lay out a more detailed timeline by the end of the year, but a staged onboarding process should be expected to allow data providers to get ready and for all the necessary user testing to be carried out.”

• the security of the ecosystem is fully assured
• the user experience has been thoroughly tested
• user behaviours have been understood and any adverse impacts or unintended consequences mitigated
• the service has coverage of enough pension memberships to meet users’ needs and be useful to a significant majority of people.

Today’s report spells out the scale of the task – involving 52 million adults being connected to up to around 40,000 providers and schemes. Existing challenges include establishing a sufficiently secure identity verification process, working out how to match people accurately to their savings and addressing the varying types and quality of data held by different providers.

The PDP progress update reportOpens in a new window (PDF/A, 1.2MB) sets out proposed ways forward regarding user testing, sourcing an ID verification service, agreeing data standards and how the programme will work with partners to align regulation and legislation. 

Two additional papers setting out thinking on the scope of dashboardsOpens in a new window (PDF/A, 2MB) and the data elements required from pension providers (PDF/A, 1.4MB) are also being made available online. Industry views will be sought on these topics later in the year.

Regular progress reports will be provided every 6 months.

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The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) has established the Pensions Dashboards Programme team (formerly known as the Industry Delivery Group), led by Principal Chris Curry, to design and implement the digital architecture that will make pensions dashboards work and which will enable individuals to view all their pensions data via their chosen dashboard.

Pensions dashboards will enable individuals to access their pensions information online, securely and all in one place, thereby supporting better planning for retirement and growing financial wellbeing. Dashboards will provide clear and simple information about an individual’s multiple pension savings, including their State Pension. They will also help them to reconnect with any lost pension pots.

Chris Curry appeared at the Work and Pensions Committee on 11 March 2020.  He committed to publishing a progress update and two additional documents related to data standards in April 2020.

Government has committed to facilitating the pensions industry to develop this initiative and has given specific responsibilities to us which include:

• Bringing together a programme team to lead the implementation of pensions dashboards.  
• Appointing an industry steering group to set the strategic direction of the programme. 
• Beginning work to create and run a non-commercial pensions dashboard – the MaPS Dashboard.