The pensions dashboards project is expected to remain on track to meet its publicised timeline, the programme’s principal d told a Work and Pensions Committee hearing on Wednesday, amid industry concerns that the existing timeline is not feasible.
At an evidence session on accessing pension savings, Curry told the committee that he expects October’s progress report update to confirm that the dashboards programme is “on track to meet the broad timeline” that has previously been set out, but did not offer any specific dates.
Curry added that the key dates will be confirmed when the Department for Work and Pensions publishes its draft regulations for the Pension Schemes Act, either at the end of this year or early next year, “which is likely to set out when pension schemes will need to start providing their data to the pensions system, the pensions dashboards ecosystem and infrastructure”.
Earlier this month, the Pensions Dashboards Programme appointed Capgemini, in partnership with fintech Origo, as the supplier of the project’s central technical architecture. Curry said that the organisations were “now working very closely” with the PDP to begin work on the deliverables.
I’m expecting the next publication in October to tell everyone that we are still on track to meet that broad timeline
Chris Curry, Pensions Dashboards Programme
“We’re expecting throughout the next the next year for 2022 to work very closely with the industry as well,” he added.
Curry said that work with the wider pensions industry will see a “working prototype” be used for testing, “initially with seven participants but then broadening it out to a wider market of providers”.
There will also be testing with pensions dashboard providers, “including the dashboards being constructed within the Money and Pensions Service” alongside other commercial dashboards to “make sure that the system works well with all of those”.
Delays plague progress
Phase one of the timeline, the ‘programme set-up and planning’, was originally intended to run from 2020, but was extended in May’s timeline update to autumn 2021.
Likewise, phase two, the ‘develop and test phase’, was initially intended to run from 2021 but was pushed back to a broad 2022 deadline.
Meanwhile, the onboarding process is scheduled for early 2023.
Under current plans, schemes with 1,000-plus members would be onboarded in a first wave, starting with master trusts and Financial Conduct Authority-regulated providers.
Defined contribution schemes used for auto-enrolment would begin onboarding later in 2023, while all remaining occupational schemes with 1,000-plus members would follow.
Yet a recent poll from the Pensions Management Institute found that confidence in the proposed dashboards being delivered on time is low.
Pensions Expert reported that the PMI’s Pulse survey, which polled 110 pension professionals, found that 78 per cent of respondents were not confident that the dashboards would be delivered in two years.
Likewise, only 56 per cent believed their scheme, or the scheme they advised, would be able to provide data by 2023.
It follows a series of industry concerns that have raised doubts over the feasibility of the timeline.
In July, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association said that the staging timeline was “too ambitious” owing to significant areas of uncertainty, adding that its members “find it extremely difficult, or are unable, to estimate how long they will need to be ready to connect to the central pensions dashboards architecture”.
Dashboards ‘likely’ target for scammers
Curry also told the hearing that the pensions dashboards project “comes with a risk attached to it” in the form of scams.
SPP warns dashboards figures will need to be illustrative
The Society of Pension Professionals has warned that pensions dashboards will have to provide illustrative figures to defined benefit members, as it will not be possible to have accurate quotations due to the complexity of current benefit structures.
He said that the dashboards programme is “likely be more of a target”, but added that the PDP was working “very closely” with the DWP and the FCA to integrate it into existing regulatory systems.
He added that the project “cannot be complacent” when it comes to data access, but noted that the digital architecture of the programme means that information is “not stored centrally”, limiting the risk of cybercrime and fraud.
Likewise, the lack of a transactional capability within the system means that it will not be “frictionless”, resulting in users having to provide validation for processes outside of the dashboards, such as making a transaction.
