Dashboards have been under development for several years but they are soon to take centre stage. Trustees of the largest schemes will be required to connect to the dashboards “ecosystem” from April 2023, with the majority of schemes following in at different “staging dates” over the course of 2023 and 2024.  The DWP and TPR expect all schemes to be taking steps now to prepare for dashboards, regardless of their staging date.

What is a dashboard and what do trustees need to do?

A pensions dashboard is essentially an online platform where members of the public can access information about all of their UK pensions provision, including their state pension, in one place.  Broadly speaking, trustees of schemes in scope will need to:

• connect to the dashboard “ecosystem” by their staging date
• ensure their scheme can receive both “find” requests (a request sent as the result of an individual searching for information about their pensions) and “view” requests (a request by an individual to see detailed information about any pension which the dashboard shows they have).

Meeting these requirements will involve a lot of steps, and the timescales will be tight.

How we can help

We can provide tailored support to trustees and other pension providers to help them understand their dashboard duties and to prepare for dashboards, including:

• providing training on their legal duties
• advising in relation to the data that needs to be provided to the dashboard and policies around data
• advising on the implications of complex benefit structures
• advising on data protection aspects of the dashboard project
• advising in relation to contractual terms (both updates to contracts with existing providers and contracts with new providers in connection with the dashboard project).

Recent experience

We have already started working with providers and trustees of schemes of all sizes to help them prepare for dashboards.

Our recent work has focussed on helping trustees to:

• establish appropriate governance and decision-making in relation to the dashboard project
• engage with their administrators and ask targeted questions about what lies ahead
• understand their duties and make decisions appropriate for the current stage.

We have also been involved in more advanced work for:

• schemes who are administered in-house, who will have additional work to undertake
• FCA regulated pension providers who fall under the FCA rules on dashboards.