It was suggested , I comment on the Ministerial press release that accompanied the grand unveiling of the DWP’s guidance setting out the connection timetable for auto-enrolment.
As this “guidance” itself has introduces nothing by way of “deadlines”, it has the legislative force of a stick of celery, it is neither a carrot or a stick, just an increasingly limp baton which it is hoped will replace the aforementioned articles
This , we are told by the battle weary dashbordistas is a major advance
Here is the staging timetable in all its detail. But note, this is not an announcement about the dashboard availability point. This “marks the milestone (sic)” of when a scheme’s “relevant members” are inspectable through the dashboards portals. It does not mark the point when people whose details are being exposed, can expect to see their details.
Because no one will see anything until the Pension Minister points his big gun in the air and shouts “go”. This is the dashboard available point of DAP and of course it will mark the complete melt-down of the interweb as we go to our chosen dashboard (MaPS?) and give it a go!
Dashboard connection is being staged in an elaborate procession over 18 months. Are punters going to be staged in the same way? The only players not included in this timetable are occupational DC schemes with less than 100 lives and the state pension.
Can the minister give us an assurance that our state pension entitlement will be available on October 30th 2026 and that’s the backstop DAP? Or is he playing us?
I’d rather be staged than played. Come on Minister, give us a “dashboard available” point and a proper deadline for us to see all our pensions and pots in the same place.
Appendix – the “exposure” queue revealed.
You can see when your workplace and non-workplace pension is in the “exposure queue” here.
Played
This Households Below Average Income (HBAI) report presents information on living standards in the United Kingdom year on year from financial year ending (FYE) 1995 to FYE 2023.
It provides estimates on the number and percentage of people living in low-income households based on their household disposable income. Figures are also provided for children, pensioners, working-age adults and individuals living in a family where someone is disabled.
The statistics in this report come from the Family Resources Survey, a representative survey of 25 thousand households in the UK in FYE 2023.
The statistics presented in this release show that:
there was a decrease in real terms median household income between FYE 2022 and FYE 2023. The decrease was 0.5% before housing costs and 1.5% after housing costs;
most of the income distribution experienced a fall in real household incomes (before housing costs), with slightly larger reductions (averaging around 2%) seen in the bottom half of the income distribution, and those in the top 10% of the distribution recording small increases in real terms before housing costs incomes;
income inequality (measured by the Gini Coefficient) increased slightly in FYE 2023, both before and after housing costs. The level has remained broadly stable since FYE 2011;
the percentage of individuals in relative low income increased before housing costs, and both before and after housing costs for absolute low income measures;
the largest increases in low-income measures are seen for children, with absolute measures showing the most increase. Changes in before housing costs rates were slightly higher than after housing costs;
low-income rates for working age adults are broadly flat compared with FYE 2022, with pensioner before housing costs rates showing small increases, and pensioner after housing costs rates flat or falling;
there was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of pensioners in material deprivation compared to FYE 2020;
estimates of the percentage of children in combined low income and material deprivation have also increased since FYE 2020, but they are stable for working age adults over the same time period;
the percentage of individuals in food secure households reduced for all age groups, and reductions were greater for those in low-income households. All estimates are at their lowest levels since their introduction in FYE 2020;
the percentage of individuals in households who had accessed a food bank in the 30 days prior to their Family Resources Survey (FRS) interview has increased since FYE 2022. Those in low-income households remain more likely to have used a food bank. The largest increases in household food bank usage were recorded for children;
estimates of the percentage of individuals in households who had used a food bank during the 12 months prior to their interview were more stable.
The DWP says that it should be noted that all FYE 2023 estimates of material deprivation, including when combined with low income, are not directly comparable to FYE 2021 and FYE 2022 due to measurement issues during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
In relation to pensioners, the statistics showed that around three-quarters of pensioners live in homes that are owned outright (compared to roughly a quarter of working-age adults), and so face minimal housing costs. This means the percentage of pensioners in low-income households is lower after housing costs than before housing costs, unlike for children and working-age adults.
As only a small proportion of pensioners have earned income from employment, trends in low income for this group are influenced more by how the value of state or personal and occupational pensions change relative to inflation and relative to growth in earnings for the population below state pension age.
The percentage of pensioners in relative low income has increased before housing costs, but decreased after housing costs. The percentage of pensioners in absolute low income before housing costs has also increased, with after housing costs measures stable.
The percentage of pensioners in relative low income before housing costs increased by 1 percentage point to 19% and decreased by 1 percentage point to 16% after housing costs in FYE 2023. These changes were not statistically significant.
The measured changes for pensioners before housing costs are higher than for working-age adults, and lower than for children. Although pensioner households will have benefitted more from cost of living support schemes, they will have received less of an increase to their incomes through wage growth being higher than increases to State Pension during FYE 2023. There was also a reduction in the real value of occupational pensions over the period.
The degree of change measured is also likely to have been influenced by changes in pensioner sample composition between the two FRS survey years and the move from telephone back to face-to-face interviewing. This broader context should be borne in mind when interpreting the observed changes in pensioner low-income rates, and a comparison to FYE 2020 is recommended.
The relative low income before housing costs measure remains slightly lower than levels measured in FYE 2020, pre-pandemic, and the after housing costs measure is 2 percentage points lower. This reflects the higher levels of outright home ownership of pensioners, meaning they were more protected from increases in housing costs seen for non-pensioners over the period (due to inflation and increasing mortgage interest rates). Between FYE 2011 and FYE 2020 there was a gradual upward trend in both relative measures.
Absolute low income before housing costs for pensioners has increased in FYE 2023, by 1 percentage point to 15%. The before housing costs figures continue the pre-pandemic trend of absolute figures being broadly flat. For absolute low income after housing costs the measure remains the same as in FYE 2022 at 12%. The after housing costs measure is below estimates published in FYE 2020.
Pensioners aged 65 or over were asked whether they had access to a list of 15 goods and services. If they didn’t have a given item (because of cost, health, or availability), this was scored in the material deprivation measure, with items more commonly owned in the population given a higher weighted score. A pensioner is in material deprivation if they live in a family that has a final score of 20 or more out of 100. More details are available in the HBAI Quality and Methodology Information Report.
In FYE 2023, the percentage of pensioners in material deprivation was 8%. This is a 2-percentage point increase compared with FYE 2020 and the estimate is at the highest level since FYE 2016. It is the first recorded increase in the measure since FYE 2014. The report says that the change in this estimate is statistically significant.
For more information on this release, please see:
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), released 21 March 2024, GOV.UK website, statistical release, Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2023.