Don’t let this be a stop to pensions dashboards

Laura Trott, the pensions minister, has sharply applied the brakes to pensions dashboards, bringing the project back down to walking pace.

Pensions dashboards is a massive cross-industry project to enable pension savers to see all their pensions safely online in one place. It will only work if it covers all pension schemes, including the state pension. That includes online investment platforms, but also public sector schemes, and legacy pensions where data quality may be patchier.

This was never going to be an easy ride, but the project seemed to be bouncing along nicely. In a flurry of regulation last year, the DWP and FCA set out that the biggest workplace pension schemes and personal pensions had to connect to the central digital architecture by end of August 2023. Pensions dashboards would then be turned on for the general public to access in late 2024.

In a shock announcement, Trott said the implementation of pensions dashboards will be reset in the summer. Although the DWP is still committed to the project, it was growing increasingly evident the ambitious timescales could never have been met. There are too many niggly problems.

This is a disappointing and frustrating setback. If they work well, pensions dashboards have the potential to galvanise pension saving in this country. People could see at a glance what pension savings they have and where. Through ‘post-view services’ they could work out how much income they want in later life, and how much more they need to achieve that goal.

Pension dashboards could have encouraged ownership, higher contributions, better investment decisions, consolidation for lower charges, and engagement with retirement decisions. The list goes on and on.

So what needs to change to get pensions dashboards to work?

The biggest issue is security. The pensions dashboards need to make sure that the people who log on are who they say they are. And the pension schemes need to have the right data to be sure they are sending the right information to the right people. Otherwise this will turn into the scammers’ charter many are warning against.

So far, the pensions dashboards programme (PDP) has been left out in the cold when it comes to using the government systems already established to check identity. This needs to change. Identification needs to verify national insurance (NI) numbers. After all, this is one of the main ways pension schemes identify their members, and a scheme check without a verified NI number is on a hiding to nothing.

We need more focus on the consumer journey. Both the FCA and PDP are acting as regulators each individually setting warnings and rules on how information is displayed. Has anyone looked at this from the pension saver’s point of view? I would argue two regulators is too many – you can have too much of a good thing!

Finally, we need a published strategy. Pensions dashboards have the potential to solve many problems in the pensions industry – most of which stem from a lack of engagement. But we need a clear direction of where the DWP intends to take this project. This first phase of dashboards is certainly not the last. So let the rest of us in on what future phases could look like.

Pensions dashboards could change pension engagement for ever. But they need to be safe. The DWP needs to take advantage of this pause in proceedings to make these vital changes. What it can’t do is lose sight of the end goal and let either practical difficulties or a change in government make this pause a permanent stop.