The Pensions Dashboards Programme, a body backed by the Money and Pensions Service, said in a progress report today that it is moving forward but has deferred two major full consultations due to the Coronavirus crisis.

Chris Curry, principal, Pensions Dashboards Programme at MAPS, said that key consultation on the scope of the dashboards and data required from pension providers would be put back to the second half of the year.

The papers have been published online today for information only.

In a statement today Mr Curry said: “It had been our intention to publish two data-related Calls for Input alongside this update but we have decided to defer that active engagement for the time being. I want to be transparent though about the work that we are doing and the progress we are making. We will therefore continue to share current thinking online and would welcome any feedback.”

The new papers can be viewed here:

https://maps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pdp-data-scope-working-paper.pdf

https://maps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pdp-data-definitions-working-paper.pdf

Pensions Dashboards will mean 52m adults being connected to up to 40,000 providers and schemes, says the group.

With each pension saver in the UK having an average of three or four pensions, including the State Pension, the task is huge, says the body.

The Pensions Dashboard Programme is one of a number of industry groups working on dashboards.

Mr Curry 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.” 

He said the group planned to publish a timeline for the introduction of Pension Dashboards later in the year.

He added: “Even when the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic has decreased, timescales depend heavily on factors including technological developments and the progress of government legislation.”

Current challenges include establishing secure identity verification, working out how to match people accurately to their savings and addressing the varying types and quality of data held by different providers.

The group says Pensions Dashboards will be ready to launch to the public when the following requirements have been met:

• 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

The update report is available here https://maps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pdp-progress-update-report.pdf

The group plans to issues regular progress reports every 6 months.