Pensions dashboards are an electronic communications service, that will revolutionise the way people interact with their pensions by allowing individuals to see their pensions information, including the State Pension, in one place online – at the touch of their laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Dashboards will help individuals to be reunited with lost or forgotten pensions and support people in better planning for their retirement. –DWP
Although we can’t expect to see pension dashboards available till November 2026, there are already worrying signs that data providers, who will by then have had a decade to prepare. will be able to seek an exemption and delay connection.
The DWP has published the terms for exemption and deadlines for logging an application to defer participation. Here they are
The 2022 Regulations allow trustees or managers of relevant occupational pension schemes to apply to defer connection of their scheme by up to 12 months if they can provide evidence to show that, before 9 August 2023:
- they had embarked on a programme to transfer the data held by the pension scheme to a new administrator; and / or
- they had entered into a contract containing an obligation to retender the administration of the scheme and the timetable for this is reasonable and conflicts with the connection deadline.
These are the only reasons that an application to defer connection can be made.
The trustee or manager will additionally need to provide evidence to show that complying with the connection deadline:
- would be disproportionately burdensome; or
- would put the personal data of members at risk.
This means that changing administrator alone would not be considered sufficient reason to defer connection beyond 31 October 2026. In some cases, for example, it might be reasonable to connect with an existing administrator and manage the change in administrator post-connection. Applications will therefore need to demonstrate how they are affected by the additional criteria above
Applications need to be in by 8th August 2024 and deferral cannot be beyond the 31st October 2027.
Don’t all rush at once
Personally, I would prefer decision making on administration to be based on a scheme being dashboard ready by the 2026 deadline. It is in the public’s interest that no scheme of more than 100 members get left behind and the business planning cycle should circle around the immutable date of dashboard delivery. If scheme managers and funders get it in their heads that the dashboard comes second , then there is a real chance that the dashboard available point will be moved backwards or that there is insufficient connectivity and people get partial dashboards.
It has long been argued that the reason for pushing the dashboard back as far as November 2026 was to make sure that nobody gets left behind. We can only hope that schemes recognise their duty to consumers to meet their customer/member needs.
Pensions dashboards are an electronic communications service, that will revolutionise the way people interact with their pensions by allowing individuals to see their pensions information, including the State Pension, in one place online – at the touch of their laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Dashboards will help individuals to be reunited with lost or forgotten pensions and support people in better planning for their retirement. –DWP
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