Pensions Dashboards: Good things come to those who wait

10 Jul 2023

For several years now, the pensions industry has been working on the idea of pensions dashboards: online tools enabling savers to view all their pension benefits from multiple schemes in one place. This could make retirement planning much easier for millions, by giving a clear and consistent view of how much their combined benefits are worth and what sort of income they can expect in retirement.

Developing and delivering dashboards is a complex project and it’s taking longer than anticipated. Following March’s general announcement of a reset to the Government’s schedule for the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), Pensions Minister Laura Trott has now provided the first date to go into the revised timeline. Schemes will have until 31 October 2026 to connect to the digital architecture for pensions dashboards. That’s about two and a half years later than previous regulations suggested.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to wait that long until you can use a pensions dashboard, but if you access one before that date, it won’t necessarily show all your pensions, because not every scheme will have connected to the system.

Many in the pensions industry are disappointed by the delays, but it’s important to remember that the priority is to get things right. Trustees and administrators need to make sure that they hold the right data in the first place. Dashboard providers need to make sure that the information is displayed in the right way. And everyone needs to make sure that all of the interfaces and connections are in place so that when you log on, the dashboard will be able to quickly and accurately find your pensions and show them to you.

In the meantime, we’d like to reassure you that Aon, our administrators, are making good progress with the necessary data checks and systems developments required to connect to the dashboard architecture.

There are also things that you can do to help. Dashboards will work by using your personal data to find your pensions, so it’s important that any pension schemes you’re in have the correct details on file for you. You can check that we have the right ones by logging on to our member portal, which is also a great way to keep on top of your pension planning.

If you have some old pensions that you’ve lost contact with, perhaps from a previous employment, you can use the Pension Tracing Service to get back in touch. Go to gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details to find out how. You’ll then be able to make sure that they have the right information for you so that those benefits show up when you use a dashboard.

We’ll keep you posted on further developments as we hear more. We’re confident that pensions dashboards will be worth the wait – but you don’t need to wait until they’re here to start planning your financial future!