On the go: The Money and Pensions Service has commissioned qualitative research to understand the challenges pension schemes face with providing data for the pensions dashboards.
In an update published on Tuesday on the guidance body’s website, Richard Smith, industry lead at the pensions dashboards industry delivery group, said properly understanding the challenges providers and schemes will face complying with the requirement to make data available is critical to ensuring the project's success.
“We have commissioned some specialist, independent, qualitative research to explore these challenges through deep-dive interviews with sample pension providers and schemes. This research will take place on a completely anonymous basis,” Mr Smith noted.
The Department for Work and Pensions confirmed in December 2018 that it will seek to foster the creation of multiple pensions dashboards, with the first one developed by Maps.
Its industry delivery group will set out a timetable for other fully operational dashboards, as well as setting standards and ensuring security across the portals.
Mr Smith also noted that a key area of the working group’s activity is to consider the specific items of people’s pensions data that pension providers and schemes should be required to supply for the dashboards.
He said: “We have been considering how best to garner as broad a range of views as possible, reflective of the different consumer, fintech and pensions industry sectors.”
The working group is developing a data scope paper with the latest assumptions for dashboard data across the whole pensions industry, which will be published in the coming months.
Pension specialists will then have an opportunity to comment and provide additional evidence where this exists, Mr Smith added.
