Richard Smith in parliament – next stop the Pension PlayPen coffee morning
Click on the Teams link at the bottom of the blog link or click HERE if you want to go into the coffee lounge
Richard Smith will be talking to us about what he’s about. Even when Richard’s not there in presence he seems to be there in spirit! I’ve listened to 90 minutes of the VFM podcast where he gets more mentions than Arsenal.
Why is he being called into every conversation? It’s because he is an unbiased commentator on the state of pensions, of the pension dashboards and of how we will be getting a lifetime income when we retire.
GRASP = Guided Retirement Across Several Providers
This blog explains his recent great idea – in Richard’s inimitable style
Click on the Teams link at the bottom of the blog link or click HERE if you want to go into the coffee lounge
We’re proud to be part of Richard Smith’s packed week! He’s playing with fire when taking us on – on Tuesday; on Wednesday he’s with the firefighters.. here is Richard talking to us on Linked in.
“Playing with Fire and Payroll” is my theme for next week …
Suddenly it’s October and dashboard is hip! I’ll be speaking at:
6️⃣ Tue 6 Oct Pension PlayPen Coffee Morning Dashboard Update & key dates – Connection completion, Culturalisation, and Consumption confidence (or The Pipes, People & Payoff)
7️⃣ Wed 7 Oct Firefighters’ Pensions Annual Conference 2026 organised and hosted by the Local Government Association, with a keynote address from former minister Guy Opperman
8️⃣ Thu 8 Oct Annual Conference & Exhibition (ACE26) of The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP), focusing on increasing contributions via payroll after using the MHPD
Dashboard makes pensions universal, and now everybody wants to hear about it!
We open things off tomorrow ( Tuesday). Bbut we are only kicking off a feast of opportunity provided by R Smith to learn how the dashboard will effect out lives.
Here’s our formal invite..
Coffee Morning – Pension Dashboard Update – CPD included
When – Tuesday 6th October 2026 at 10:30am (1Hr)
You are cordially invited to join our next Coffee Morning in which Pensions Guru, Richard Smith will be giving us an update on Pension Dashboard.
Richard Smith is the people’s Pension Dashboard expert having been involved from the “off”. He has held roles with Aon, PWC, NEST and the National Grid. More recently he has held Dashboard roles with the PLSA, Money hub & PASA.
Click on the Teams link at the bottom of the blog link or click HERE if you want to go into the coffee lounge
Richard’s session has a title that will be
“The Pipes, The People & The Payoff”
This will focus on Culturalization & Consumer confidence.
He will also take us on a quick run through on how data connection is now done, potential data quality issues and beyond.
Richard will then take a deeper dive into Culturalization, i.e. how do we bring the Money Helper Pension Dashboard (MHPD) to the public consciousness making it part of the UK’s civic architecture?
What about Consumption confidence? Is this all about plugging MHPD data into Guided Retirement , Retirement-CDC, Whole of Life – CDC, etc. etc.
Some dates that Richard will focus on:
- Connection completion (2026)
- Culturalization (2027/28)
- Consumption confidence (2029)
To register:
Add this event to your calendar; the timing is as usual 10.30 am on Tuesday 6th October
and click on the Teams link or HERE on the day.
We hope you can join.
Platform
MicrosoftTeams
Url
https://teams.microsoft.com/
My own personal experience with the Pensions Dashboard beta version …
I’m a simple soul: I have just two pension sources, (1) my state pension which I’ve been drawing since 2018, and (2) my SIPP which I’ve been drawing on occasionally in certain years, sometimes tax-free and in others a mix of taxed and tax-free. Really just my way of checking that my SIPP provided can do pensioner payroll.
The dashboard got my state pension annual income correct.
For my SIPP it gave only the provider’s name and address and a retirement date of my 75th birthday, which probably goes back to when the SIPP was taken out (last century) and the age 75 default was an annuity, a restriction which has been relaxed since 2011.
So my first impression was favourable, but still a work-in-progress since the dashboard was first announced in 2016.
The dashboard said I should contact my SIPP provider if estimated values did not appear within three (working) days.
I allowed three working days and then contacted my SIPP provider, who knew nothing about the dashboard.
I then contacted the dashboard research team (or “panel”) who said they could not contact my SIPP provider on my behalf. I hadn’t asked them to. I was simply pointing out that my SIPP provider knew nothing about the dashboard.
The research team said they could forward my details to the dashboard’s help and support team, who could provide further assistance with following up with my SIPP provider and the information they might need, to provide all the information on my pension. I agreed to this, but I’m still waiting to hear from the dashboard’s help and support team.
My second impression of the dashboard project is, therefore, not good.
I’m also reminded of Robert Cochran’s experiences with being shown an estimated pension of £143,859.32 from 2036 …