Pensions - Articles - Dashboards early warning system needed before go live date

 “Pension dashboards have the potential to be gamechangers in not only connecting people with their pensions, but also improving pension engagement. The dashboard availability point is a critical milestone in the pensions dashboards journey. This is the day the public will finally be able to access dashboards and view all their pensions online in one place.

 “We all want the public to be excited about dashboards, and dashboard availability day could see the pension industry facing unprecedented demand from the public, meaning customer services teams need to be fully ready to avoid being overwhelmed. The proposal of a mere 90 days’ notice of the dashboard availability point wouldn’t give the pension industry time to gear up and recruit and train enough frontline staff to be able respond to members’ enquiries. A six-month notice period is needed to make sure that all the resources are in place.

 “As well as a six-month lead in time, we’d welcome an early warning system of progress towards dashboard availability point. The Pensions Regulator is expected to monitor the state of dashboard readiness and progress towards achieving critical mass of scheme and member information. Sharing this information with the pension industry, for example, using a fuel gauge approach, would give the industry advance notice to help with planning. This could make all the difference to the consumers’ initial dashboard experience.

 “We are not in favour of multiple dashboard availability points, for example by age cohorts. This would weaken the messages underlying Government and industry campaigns ahead of the pension dashboard launch and could be confusing for savers. We believe a big bang approach, with a six month notice period along with full transparency around the proximity of the ‘go live’ date would be preferable for both savers and the pension industry.”