ICAS ICAS logo

Quicklinks

  1. About Us

    Find out about who we are and what we do here at ICAS.

  2. Find a CA

    Search our directory of individual CAs and Member organisations by name, location and professional criteria.

  3. CA Magazine

    View the latest issues of the dedicated magazine for ICAS Chartered Accountants.

  4. Contact Us

    Get in touch with ICAS by phone, email or post, with dedicated contacts for Members, Students and firms.

Login
  • Annual renewal
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Find a CA
  1. About us
    1. Governance
  2. Members
    1. Become a member
    2. Newly qualified
    3. Manage my membership
    4. Benefits of membership
    5. Careers support
    6. Mentoring
    7. CA Wellbeing
    8. More for Members
    9. Area networks
    10. International communities
    11. Get involved
    12. Top Young CAs
    13. Career breaks
    14. ICAS podcast
    15. Newly admitted members 2022
    16. Newly admitted members 2023
  3. CA Students
    1. Student information
    2. Student resources
    3. Learning requirements
    4. Learning updates
    5. Learning blog
    6. Totum Pro | Student discount card
    7. CA Student wellbeing
  4. Become a CA
    1. How to become a CA
    2. Routes to becoming a CA
    3. CA Stories
    4. Find a training agreement
    5. Why become a CA
    6. Qualification information
    7. University exemptions
  5. Employers
    1. Become an Authorised Training Office
    2. Resources for Authorised Training Offices
    3. Professional entry
    4. Apprenticeships
  6. Find a CA
  7. ICAS events
    1. CA Summit
  8. CA magazine
  9. Insight
    1. Finance + Trust
    2. Finance + Technology
    3. Finance + EDI
    4. Finance + Mental Fitness
    5. Finance + Leadership
    6. Finance + Sustainability
  10. Professional resources
    1. Anti-money laundering
    2. Audit and assurance
    3. Brexit
    4. Business and governance
    5. Charities
    6. Coronavirus
    7. Corporate and financial reporting
    8. Cyber security
    9. Ethics
    10. Insolvency
    11. ICAS Research
    12. Pensions
    13. Practice
    14. Public sector
    15. Sustainability
    16. Tax
  11. CPD - professional development
    1. CPD courses and qualifications
    2. CPD news and updates
    3. CPD support and advice
  12. Regulation
    1. Complaints and sanctions
    2. Regulatory authorisations
    3. Guidance and help sheets
    4. Regulatory monitoring
  13. CA jobs
    1. CA jobs partner: Rutherford Cross
    2. Resources for your job search
    3. Advertise with CA jobs
    4. Hays | A Trusted ICAS CA Jobs Partner
    5. Azets | What's your ambition?
  14. Work at ICAS
    1. Business centres
    2. Meet our team
    3. Benefits
    4. Vacancies
    5. Imagine your career at ICAS
  15. Contact us
    1. Technical and regulation queries
    2. ICAS logo request

The pensions dashboard: achievable goal or pipe dream?

shutterstock_191426
  • LinkedIn (opens new window)
  • Twitter (opens new window)
By Liz Duffy, Policy Adviser, Pensions at ICAS

22 August 2016

Main points

  • With less than three years to deliver the pensions dashboard, this will undoubtedly be an enormous challenge for the UK Government and the ABI.  The active co-operation of the pensions industry and public service pension providers will be vital to this.
  • Consumer confidence will be key to the achievement of the dashboard's main aims, which along with other recent pension reforms are to encourage greater pension saving and boost retirement incomes.
  • There are a number of aspects of the pensions dashboard project which need to be settled well in advance of the development of the IT which will support it, not least how it will be governed and funded.

Liz Duffy explores the enormous challenges likely to be encountered in the delivery of the pensions dashboard.

Benefits of the pensions dashboard

The concept of the pensions dashboard is desirable for the UK Government and individuals, particularly if it encourages people to review their pensions savings and take action to plan for their retirement. If it achieves the desired result people should be better prepared financially for their retirement and hopefully less reliant on state benefits. It is, however, a massive, massive challenge - not least the timescale - and the remainder of this paper highlights some of the issues facing the Government, the project and the pensions industry.

The biggest challenge is time: in the 2016 Budget Statement, George Osborne announced that the dashboard would be delivered by 2019. This is a very ambitious timescale for a task of this scale and complexity.

Timescale challenges

In less than three years, the Project Steering Group, established by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), not only needs to develop and test the dashboard, but needs to interact with:

  • the UK Government to agree the governance arrangements and legislative requirements; and
  • the pensions industry to agree the data format and data interfaces into the dashboard.

These will be an enormous asks within the current timescale.

There are a number of stakeholder groups when it comes to the pensions dashboard, but before looking at the impact on these groups there are some wider issues to consider.

Potential challenges arising from wider events

What impact will the decision to leave the EU have on pensions and will this have a negative knock on effect on the dashboard?

The role of pensions minister has been downgraded from Minister of State to Parliamentary Under Secretary in Theresa May’s new Government, although the pensions brief is purportedly unchanged. Is this a sign that pensions and retirement saving are not regarded as high a priority for the new Government? Will HM Treasury become the dominant force in pension policy?

At this stage it is too early to assess the effect of these developments on pensions in general and the dashboard in particular, but the signs are ominous.

Key stakeholders

With regard to the stakeholders directly impacted by the dashboard these fall broadly into three main groupings:

  • The Project Steering Group overseeing the delivery of the dashboard
  • Pensions providers and administrators
  • Government and regulators

In addition to these stakeholders there are the end users, pension savers, to be considered.

Practical challenges of delivery

As noted above the Steering Group has a lot to do in a relatively short timescale, but some key questions need to be addressed.

Currently there is no legislation or regulation in place to ensure that the pensions providers and administrators co-operate in this project to provide the data required to populate the dashboard. For some it will be a significant undertaking to provide the data in the required format and there may be a reluctance to do so. The Project Steering Group is likely to need some sort of legal framework to work within and given the current situation the Government may be hard pressed to react quickly in this regard.

Funding is another important area. This initiative is to be industry funded. HM Treasury announced in the Budget 2016 that there would be no public funding for the dashboard. Although the Project Steering Group has conceded more work is required on how to fund this, the point is that the dashboard will not only be populated with details of private sector pensions but also public sector pensions and state pensions. Is the Government expecting the pensions industry and\or commercial firms to cover the initial and ongoing costs of building and populating the dashboard for all these pensions?

The pensions industry will be required to provide data to populate the dashboard and it will have to be in a standard format. For many providers this will be a huge undertaking particularly for closed books of business and older style pension products. Not only will this be a significant internal cost to the industry, but it will divert their resources from other more commercial projects for little perceived benefit from their perspective.

The Pensions Finder Alpha white paper, produced by a Working Group, prior to the establishment of the Project Steering Group, recognised that the delivery timescale is very tight and one of its recommendations is phased delivery. There are various ways in which delivery could be phased, for example by type of scheme or customers born after a certain date. No decision has yet been made, but while the Project Steering Group recognises that it will need to manage the expectations of consumers during the phased period there has so far been no comment from the Group on how the phasing may affect those providing the data to the dashboard. This could, depending on the approach selected, create more work for those in the pensions industry.

The pensions dashboard will obviously provide access to a vast amount of personal data and this raises not only the question of data protection, but also where this data will be held. The preference among consumers is for a single destination dashboard where they can view all their pensions in one place. The Project Steering Group is considering what type of organisation could be responsible for the pensions dashboard, but whether it is an existing or new organisation there are arguments for it being publicly accountable. This inevitably throws up a number of data protection issues such as what amount of data storage is acceptable, risks of security breaches etc. The Project Steering Group is aware of the issues and is keen to stress the importance of having a governance committee to oversee the operation of the dashboard, but acknowledges the need for more work in this area.

It is not clear at this stage how the Project Steering Group intends to engage and communicate with consumers to make them aware of the pensions dashboard and how it can assist them with their retirement planning.

In conclusion

The pensions dashboard is a huge project with many deliverables in a short timescale. There are many work streams with big decisions to take which need to be carefully managed to ensure the project is moving forward in accordance with the timeline. Collaboration across many stakeholders over a range of issues is required and has to be well co-ordinated. Most importantly, to avoid damaging consumer confidence, the Project Steering Group and ultimately, the UK Government, must get it right!

What is the pensions dashboard?

By Liz Duffy, Policy Adviser, Pensions at ICAS

23 August 2016

2022-11-mitigo 2022-11-mitigo
ICAS logo

Footer links

  • Contact us
  • Terms and conditions
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Privacy notice
  • CA magazine

Connect with ICAS

  • Facebook (opens new window) Facebook Icon
  • Twitter (opens new window) Twitter Icon
  • LinkedIn (opens new window) LinkedIn Icon
  • Instagram (opens new window) Instagram Icon

ICAS is a member of the following bodies

  • Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (opens new window) Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies logo
  • Chartered Accountants Worldwide (opens new window) Chartered Accountants Worldwide logo
  • Global Accounting Alliance (opens new window) Global Accounting Alliance
  • International Federation of Accountants (opens new window) IFAC
  • Access Accountancy (opens new window) Access Acountancy

Charities

  • ICAS Foundation (opens new window) ICAS Foundation
  • SCABA (opens new window) scaba

Accreditations

  • ISO 9001 - RGB (opens new window)
© ICAS 2022

The mark and designation “CA” is a registered trade mark of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), and is available for use in the UK and EU only to members of ICAS. If you are not a member of ICAS, you should not use the “CA” mark and designation in the UK or EU in relation to accountancy, tax or insolvency services. The mark and designation “Chartered Accountant” is a registered trade mark of ICAS, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and Chartered Accountants Ireland. If you are not a member of one of these organisations, you should not use the “Chartered Accountant” mark and designation in the UK or EU in relation to these services. Further restrictions on the use of these marks also apply where you are a member.

ICAS logo

Our cookie policy

ICAS.com uses cookies which are essential for our website to work. We would also like to use analytical cookies to help us improve our website and your user experience. Any data collected is anonymised. Please have a look at the further information in our cookie policy and confirm if you are happy for us to use analytical cookies: