Pensions Dashboard

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Secretary, His Majesty's Treasury (Emma Reynolds)]

The Government want to shape the pensions system to serve the interests of savers and future pensioners, ensuring decent, secure retirement incomes for all. As part of achieving that goal, we want to make it easier for people to understand their pensions information so they can better prepare for financial security in later life.

As people often move around the labour market throughout their working lives, this can make it difficult for individuals to keep track of their pensions savings. To help solve this problem, the Government are committed to the delivery of pensions dashboards.

Pensions dashboards will provide a secure way for individuals to view a summary of their pensions picture online, including information about the state pension. This will help people find their lost pension pots and promote greater engagement—empowering individuals to plan their future more confidently.

The Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), which is part of the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), recently concluded a formal reset process which generated a revised delivery plan. In line with that plan, the programme has begun testing the connection journey with a small number of external organisations which will help facilitate wider industry connections. Alongside this, the PDP has published an updated draft code of connection, technical standards, and data standards to support the pensions industry to prepare for connection. As a result of the PDP’s progress, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has increased its confidence in the programme’s ability to deliver against their revised plan.

While it is too early to confirm a launch date for public use, we are taking steps to help the public realise the benefits of using a pensions dashboard at the earliest opportunity. I have directed the PDP to focus its efforts on the connection and launch of the MoneyHelper dashboard service (provided by MaPS), before turning to the work of connecting commercial dashboard services.

The Government support the principle of enabling multiple commercial pensions dashboard services, which will provide savers with greater choice to access their pensions information from organisations they are familiar with, promoting greater engagement with pensions. However, in the interests of ensuring consumers have the best experience on dashboards, it is prudent to allow a period while only the MoneyHelper dashboard is operational. Prioritising the launch of the Government-backed dashboard in this way will provide an opportunity to obtain better insights into customer behaviour and ensure greater confidence in operational delivery, security, and consumer protection before facilitating the connection of commercial dashboards.

We are committed to the existing published timetable for the connection of pension schemes and providers to the pensions dashboards ecosystem, which is expected to begin in April 2025, as well as the overall connection deadline of 31 October 2026. It is therefore essential that the pensions industry continues to prepare for connection, having regard to the timetable set out in DWP’s guidance.

Facilitating the launch of pensions dashboards is a challenging and complex undertaking, but the Government are firmly committed to their successful delivery and to unlocking the potential benefits they will offer to future pensioners.

[HCWS148]