Steve Webb: Pension dashboards will be worth the wait

Attitudes to pension dashboards in the adviser community are divided, to say the least.

Some see it as a potential labour-saving device, enabling advisers to see all (or most) of a new client’s pensions in one place, making information gathering a lot easier and ensuring a complete picture.

Other supporters expect mass promotion of dashboards will lead more savers to engage with their pensions and increase the chance of people seeking advice.

However, critics regard it as “another government IT project” which is way behind schedule.

They question whether the public is going to be sufficiently interested to take the trouble to go online and search out pension information, and whether the large cost of the project is worth it in terms of the benefits it will generate.

The concern is that we will see a huge capacity crunch as the new 2026 deadline approaches

So, who is right, and where are we up to on the project itself?

It is certainly true that dashboards have been talked about for a very long time and the delivery of the project always seems to be several years away.

At the turn of 2023, it seemed as though we were finally making progress, with a set of legally binding deadlines for schemes and providers to connect to the dashboard. This ‘staging’ process would run through 2024 and 2025, with a switch-on to the public perhaps early in 2025.

Unfortunately, it had become apparent that the IT work involved in putting together the infrastructure was behind schedule. The pensions minister announced a ‘reset’ of the project, while the Department for Work and Pensions undertook a full review.

The outcome of that review was published earlier this month, with the result that interim deadlines for schemes to stage have now been scrapped. Instead, there will be a legally binding final date of October 2026, which will apply to all schemes and providers in scope of the project.

All it would take is one mention by Martin Lewis for millions of people to be aware

This will be coupled with an ‘indicative’ timetable for connection to the dashboard infrastructure.

The concern is that without the threat of legal sanctions, busy pension providers and pension schemes will put off dealing with their dashboard duties and we will see a huge capacity crunch as the 2026 deadline approaches.

The government has said the dashboards switch-on date could actually come before October 2026 (with some schemes adding their data after the initial go-live). But if some big schemes leave it to the last minute, this may be unlikely.

But notwithstanding the repeated delays, I remain convinced it is the advisers who see the potential of dashboards who have got it right.

A key point is that there will be a huge drive to get people to view their dashboard data. It won’t simply sit on the internet gathering dust. The government will want to launch the go-live to the public with a big fanfare, while providers who have set up their own dashboard will also want to drive engagement.

There are bound to be early good news stories of people going online and finding thousands they never knew they had

All it would take is one mention in a Martin Lewis weekly email for millions of people to be aware of this new tool.

A major attraction to the public of dashboards will be the hope of a windfall – finding lost pots. Large numbers of people now have multiple pots and may already have started to lose track of some of them.

There are bound to be early good news stories of people going online and finding tens of thousands they never knew they had. This could be a big early draw.

In steady state, dashboards will live or die by the added value services they offer. If you can see your pensions (and other key financial data) in one place with easy access and tools to help you engage, it could be as natural to look at a pensions dashboard as to check your current account balance.

And if that leads to greater engagement and more people asking more questions, the advice profession should be well placed to support people in getting answers.

Steve Webb is a partner at consultants LCP, and was pensions minister 2010-15