Government publishes response to consultation on dashboard regulations

Further on the subject of pensions dashboards, on July 15, 2022, the DWP published its response to the January 2022 consultation on the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 which set out the standards pension schemes will need to meet under the statutory framework.

The changes to be made reflect points made by some of those who responded to the consultation:

• Public service pensions schemes’ staging date is pushed 5 months back from April 30, 2024, to September 30, 2024.
• Master trusts and money purchase schemes used for auto-enrolment with more than 20,000 relevant members have their staging dates pushed back 2 months from June 30, 2023, to August 31, 2023.
• The staging date for hybrid schemes has been simplified. It will now be calculated as if all members had DB benefits. However, the DWP expects most staging dates will not have changed.
• Hybrid master trusts will be treated in the same way as other hybrid schemes.

Some concerns were raised during the DWP’s consultation about scheme liability for the misuse or misinterpretation of scheme information on dashboards. Consequently, the Pensions Dashboards Programme opened a consultation on July 19, 2022 on the standards of operation on dashboards. The standards cover technical aspects including data formatting, connection processes and data usage guidance.

The PDP has also published a call for input on dashboard design standards, which will set out the requirements for the presentation of pensions data.

The consultation runs until August 30, 2022.