Asked by: James Asser (Labour - West Ham and Beckton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to (a) improve access to pension information and (b) introduce the Pension Dashboards Scheme.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government ensures everyone has access to free impartial pension guidance through the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS). Their MoneyHelper service provides guidance to the public on all areas of UK pensions. In September 2024, MaPS launched a new digital service to give individuals more choice on how to access guidance from Pension Wise, which is part of MoneyHelper.
Pensions dashboards will improve access to pensions information by allowing people to view information about their pensions, including the State Pension, securely and in one place online. This will help promote greater engagement with pensions information, empowering people to better prepare for retirement. MaPS oversees the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) which is responsible for designing and implementing the digital architecture that will make pensions dashboards work.
PDP continues to test the connection journeys of around 20 ‘voluntary participant’ organisations. This activity will help support the connection of pension schemes and providers to the dashboards digital architecture from April 2025, in line with the published timetable. The connection of schemes and providers in line with the dates in guidance will enable MaPS and PDP to undertake user testing, in turn helping to inform the launch of dashboard services at the earliest possible point. Further information on dashboards delivery progress is set out in PDP’s update report, published biannually on the Pensions Dashboards Programme website: www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/progress-update-report.