DWP publish consultation on Pensions dashboards
05 December 2018
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published a consultation ‘Pensions dashboards: Working together for the consumer’ to seek views on a range of questions relating to the creation of pensions dashboards.
A pensions dashboard is a service which will let people access their pension information in a single place online, in a clear and simple form. Putting individuals in control of their data, it will bring together their pensions information from multiple sources, which can then be accessed at a time of their choosing.
The government has committed to facilitating industry to lead the creation of pensions dashboards to deliver the best of industry innovation. Government is prepared to legislate to compel pension schemes to provide their data for dashboards, and to take steps to provide State Pension data via dashboards.
The DWP is consulting on its approach and responses will be used to inform how government can best facilitate industry to deliver pensions dashboards.
This consultation will run until 28 January 2019. The preferred method of response is through an online questionnaire which is available through Citizen Space, however the consultation does include details of alternative methods of response.
Geographical extent - this consultation applies to England, Wales and Scotland. It is envisaged that Northern Ireland will make corresponding legislation.
Background
The concept of a pensions dashboard has existed for some time but industry on its own has made limited progress in its delivery. Reflecting this, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recommended in its Financial Advice Market Review in 2016 that government should challenge industry to make a pensions dashboard available to consumers by 2019. This view was echoed by government in its Budget that same year.
Following the Budget announcement in 2016, an industry-led Pensions Dashboard Project Group was set up, sponsored by HM Treasury and managed by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). In April 2017, the group demonstrated a prototype for a dashboard, showing that the technology behind it can work. The industry Project Group continued independently of government with a research phase, publishing its findings in a report in October 2017. This made a number of recommendations, including the need for a government-backed delivery authority to proceed. Since then there have been further publications concerning the pensions dashboard, including a report from Which?, in February 2018.
The Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, Guy Opperman MP, announced in October 2017 that the DWP would take lead policy responsibility for a pensions dashboard. Subsequently, the Minister for Work and Pensions (Lords), Baroness Buscombe, outlined to Parliament the department’s plans for a feasibility study to look at areas including:
- what would be of most use to individuals in order to help them plan effectively for their retirement
- safeguarding consumer interests
- different delivery models
- the participation of pension schemes.
In September 2018, the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion announced in a Written Statement to Parliament that an industry-led dashboard, facilitated by government, will harness the best of industry innovation.
The consultation Pensions dashboards: Working together for the consumer published 4 December 2018, sets out the DWP’s findings from its feasibility work, and invites contributions that will help to inform how government can best facilitate an industry-led delivery.
It seeks the views of as wide a range of people and organisations with an interest in pensions dashboards as possible, in particular pension providers, administrators, consumer bodies, financial services and technology suppliers / intermediaries.