Are you ready for Pension Dashboards?

Let us help you.

“The stakes have never been higher. Savers will soon be interacting with their personal data as never before through pensions dashboards.

Failure to meet the deadlines is not an option”

- Nausicaa Delfas, CEO, The Pensions Regulator

What is happening?

Pensions Dashboards are coming.

Every person will be able to access their pensions information online, securely and all in one place. This will connect people to their pensions and increase their engagement and understanding. It will also help them find £26.6 billion of lost pots.

Starting from 30 April 2025, pension schemes must start to connect to the Pensions Dashboards infrastructure. Schemes with 1,000 members or more (excluding pensioners) must finish connecting by 31 October 2025. You can see the full timetable here.

This is about 12 - 18 months’ work. So if you haven’t already started, you need to do so now.

What do I need to do?

In essence, you need to be ready for up to 16.3 million people to ask you if you are looking after a pension for them. You must be able to match them to your records, and give them details of their benefits. And you must be able to do this digitally, in real time.

This is one of the most challenging technology projects that schemes have ever faced. Data, connectivity, calculations, and operations must all gear up for a much higher standard of accuracy and digitisation.

Many schemes will rely on third party ISPs and software providers to do the bulk of the work. But unless you are on top of the programme and of your suppliers, you could be sleepwalking into trouble. You only have to think back to some of the problems with auto-enrolment middleware to understand the risk of delegating responsibility for duties that you are on the hook for.

The list below gives an idea of some of the aspects you need to consider. It’s not comprehensive or detailed, but it should give you a decent flavour.

Programme Governance
Set up a project team and define roles, responsibilities and decision making authorities.
Design a comprehensive, trackable plan.

Connection
Decide how you’ll connect to the Dashboards infrastructure.
If you are intend to use an ISP, you must decide which one to use. The differ a lot in what they offer.

Data preparation
Identify all your data sources and systems, including AVCs, if any
Assess your data's accuracy and completeness.
Plan and execute a data improvement strategy, if necessary.

Matching rules
Decide how you’ll identify matches and partial matches.
Test the matching rules and define a monitoring and improvement process.

Estimated Retirement Income
Decide how you'll calculate and provide ERIs.
Identify any gaps in automated ERI calculations and decide how to address them.

Operations
Plan for the operational impact of more queries and transfers.
Determine how to handle partial matches and data correnctions.

Dashboard strategy
Formulate a strategy for offering member dashboards; build, buy or signpost.
Design dashboard communications strategy for members.

Legal and Data Protection
Review contracts for commercial and liability risks.
Ensure the correct protections and permissions are in place for all parties involved in handling your data.

How can we help?

Readiness Assessment

An independent, objective, experienced view.

Are you confident that your scheme will connect to the Dashboards infrastructure on its connection date?

We can help by running a readiness assessment, giving you an objective, structured overview of your dashboard preparation status.

We’ll review your current position against 10 areas, including connection, data, ERIs etc. This will give you peace of mind about the areas that are on track, and highlight any areas that need attention.

For trustees, we can run practical training workshops, where we cover the practical aspects of dashboards, how to hold your suppliers to account and what red flags to look out for.

If you are responsible for multiple schemes, we can also run the readiness assessments in bulk, so you can get an overall map of what areas need your attention and identify any common areas of risk, allowing you to manage them more effectively.

Delivery Support

Do you have the right people and expertise available to deliver your dashboard programme?

We can help by supplementing your dashboard team to give you extra bandwidth and experience.

We can fulfil many needs including:

  • Programme oversight

  • Designing solution architectures

  • Evaluating and managing ISPs

  • Running data improvement projects

  • Analysing and writing detailed requirements

Why Us?

Independent

I will give you my objective advice based purely on what I would do if I were in your shoes. I have no dashboard technology to sell, so my advice is not conflicted.

Experienced

I have decades of experience with pensions technology. I helped dozens of clients implement auto-enrolment and have sponsored dashboard programmes.

Pragmatic

I will keep it simple and help you find the most pragmatic approach. I don’t overcomplicate issues to rack up fees.

Motivated

I am a dashboard enthusiast. I want to help clients make a success of it.

Cost effective

I am an independent consultant, not a corporate behemoth. I can offer deeper experience at a lower cost.