Employer Update – The Pensions Dashboard

For a very long time it seems, the Government has been talking about the concept of Pension Dashboards. These dashboards will enable UK individuals to view information on all their UK pensions from all providers (including The State Pension), together in one secure place.

In the past couple of years, it has been gathering momentum and recent announcements indicate that progress with the design and creation of the pension’s dashboards ecosystem and the supporting governance framework have progressed well. The work involves the Department of Work & Pensions, The FCA, The Pensions Regulator, the many pension providers and The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS).

Employers will not be required to conduct any tasks and won’t have any responsibilities in relation to the dashboards and their workplace pensions. However, it is worth you being aware of these developments, as you are expected to play a part in promoting and signposting employees to dashboards when launched.

The connection deadline for all pension providers to be on a dashboard is 31 October 2026. The connection of providers to the dashboard will be on a staged basis and will commence in 2024 with the largest schemes going first. This will include Master Trusts.

It is estimated that 12 million people are under-saving for later life. So, the objectives of the dashboards are to:

• increase individual awareness and understanding of pensions information and estimated retirement income.

• build a greater sense of control, ownership and engagement with pensions.

• support the advice and guidance process by enabling people to access pensions information at a time of their choosing.

• reconnect people with ‘lost’ pension pots.

Why are they needed?

• 18 million people have Defined Contribution (DC) pensions.

• 14.4 million have Defined Benefit (DB) pensions.

• It is estimated that 40% of people in the UK have more than one pension plan.

• 2.8 million pension pots are not currently matched to their owner and the value of these pots equates to £26.6 billion.

There will be further announcements from the Government taskforce responsible for delivery of this, so I’ll keep you posted on only relevant developments.