So you’ve connected to pensions dashboards… what next?

As trustees, over the past few years you will have heavily relied on your administrator to help prepare your scheme for connection to pensions dashboards. They will know the dashboards regulations and Pensions Dashboards Programme’s standards inside out, be able to tell you the difference between Find and Value data and what a PeI is, and explain how they are connecting your members’ data to dashboards. (And if they haven’t, here’s a glossary of dashboards terms!)

Since the dashboards regulations were laid, we’ve had several dashboards-related ministerial statements, one ‘reset’ and six pensions ministers, and now the statutory deadline for connection of 31 October 2026 is finally in sight.

Connection is a milestone moment for any scheme in scope for pensions dashboards, but of course it is just the beginning. With the public launch of the MoneyHelper dashboard possibly only a year away, how prepared is your administrator for the next phase?

Handling possible matches

While administrators might have modelled how many possible matches they expect to receive on a scheme, based on how clean members’ data is and the combinations used in their matching strategy, this will still only act as a rough guide. Users might not provide all the data items used in a matching strategy (particularly a National Insurance number), or may mistype those items which are not verified before they are used to match. If your administrator doesn’t have a matching policy that can help deal with such scenarios, it may end up producing more possible matches than originally thought.

While the onus is on users to contact schemes to resolve possible matches, administrators need to be ready should the majority choose to do so. How will your administrator handle potential match queries – are they planning a dedicated telephone line or an online form specifically for this purpose? And how automated is the process? How much does it rely on resource that may need to be taken from business as usual queries or other projects?

Can your administrator meet the 10-day deadline for benefit data?

The provision of Value – or benefit – data is a key element of pensions dashboards, and users will expect to see it when they log on. Schemes will have varying levels of Value data provision, for a variety of reasons. Smaller schemes and those about to trigger wind up may decide that the cost of calculating all members’ benefits solely for dashboards is not a viable exercise. Most schemes will also have small cohorts of ‘special case’ members where it would be time consuming and expensive to calculate their benefits in advance when the members might not even access dashboards.

Administrators need to have a plan to deal with these members should they access dashboards and request this information – even if a large scheme is 95% automated, that may still leave several hundred members needing benefit data calculated on request. And with a statutory 10 working day deadline to provide defined benefit information (and only three for defined contribution), it’s going to require a slick and well managed process.

Planning for follow-up queries

We hope that insights gained from the user testing currently being carried out on the MoneyHelper dashboard will show what users typically do after visiting dashboards. Administrators should use this information to model how many of their members might request a retirement or transfer quote, or contact them with a more general dashboards query, and plan how to resource any uptick in work. Again, will they be relying on existing resource, or perhaps a digital solution to manage some of these queries? And have they explained to you how they might charge for this extra work?

What management information should your administrator record?

The retention of management information is a requirement under the dashboard regulations, and your administrators – including any AVC providers who are connecting directly to dashboards - should be recording various metrics once your scheme is connected. This includes items such as the number of view requests received and the time taken to respond to each one, the use of Value data unavailable codes, and confirmation that the scheme has remained connected to dashboards for over 99.5% of the time.

For now this information needs only to be recorded and made available to regulatory bodies on request, but routine reporting of these metrics is expected to be a requirement in future. As trustees, you are ultimately responsible for recording this information, so make sure your administrator has a plan for doing this on your behalf which is compliant and transparent. They should also have a way of letting you view and keep track of key dashboard metrics, be that via quarterly administration reports or a live dashboard that shows the information in real time.

While trustees’ focus has for so long been on connecting schemes to dashboards, they now need to look ahead to the initiative’s next phase. Ask your administrator what plans they are putting in place for each of the areas above. And ask them how you can help prepare for the launch of the MoneyHelper dashboard – consider putting an item in your next newsletter warming members up to dashboards so they know what they can expect to see and what they need to do should they have a query. Can you use your communications to explain to members why keeping their details up to date with all of their pension schemes will be beneficial? Taking the time now to work out what might be needed, and how these needs will be met, could make for a less painful experience when dashboards are launched to the public.