LGPS funds back LGA opposition to 90-day dashboard window

The Department for Work and Pensions’ pensions dashboard consultation closed on July 19.

A number of commentators came out against the 90-day period between the point at which the dashboards will be available to the public — known as the 'dashboards available point' — and their announcement. 

Sackers associate director Katy Harries told Pensions Expert in July: “Expecting the largest schemes to be ready to go in less than a year is rather like asking someone to bake a cake but only giving them part of the recipe.” 

This will be a major call on their already stretched resources

Joanne Donnelly, Local Government Association

Some commentators suggested that the window between announcing dashboards and making them accessible be extended to at least six months.

“We have concerns about the 90 days deadline,” LGA head of pensions Joanne Donnelly said in her response to the government on July 19.

It advised the government that it has “no way of quantifying the impact of making pensions dashboards available to everyone on one day”.

Stretched resources

Responding on behalf of the LGA and the Local Government Pensions Committee, Donnelly warned that LGPS funds would need to prepare for a surge in queries once the dashboards initiative goes live.

“This will be a major call on their already stretched resources,” Donnelly said. “They will need to recruit and train additional staff at a time when every other pension scheme in England, Wales and Scotland will be doing the same.”

Donnelly cited a recent survey that revealed that the average vacancy rate in the LGPS is 10.77 per cent, or the equivalent of five full-time posts.

She recommended the DWP and the Pensions Dashboard Programme carry out research identifying how many people are likely to connect to the dashboards when they go live.

The LGA suggested a phased publication of the DAP, she added, potentially by age or region, in order to prevent a significant surge of queries from the start of the dashboards’ operation.

“We also suggest that TPR considers providing easements as they did during the Covid pandemic,” Donnelly said. 

“The easements could provide that there is an initial grace period during which TPR will not enforce penalties if pension schemes are not able to respond to queries or provide value data within the proposed statutory timescales.” 

Donnelly suggested that the easements could, for example, apply to providers’ requirement to resolve possible matches within 30 days, and to offer ‘value data’ within 10 days where an annual benefit statement has not been produced in the previous 12 months.

At the start of August, the Pensions Administration Standards Association published guidance on value data for dashboards, advising providers that this data will require additional backend calculations and preparedness. Value data is the term used to describe accrued and projected pension values.

LGPS funds agree

Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee chief executive David Murphy told Pensions Expert: “NILGOSC shares the concerns expressed by the LGA and supports the suggestions it has made in its response.”

An Avon Pension Fund spokesperson said the fund “supports the sentiment of the LGA response to the further consultation on pensions dashboards, and this was echoed in its own response to DWP”.

The fund plans to release its consultation response to the public after its next pension committee meeting.

An Essex Pension Fund spokesperson also told Pensions Expert that the fund supported the LGA’s response.

A DWP spokesperson said: "Pensions dashboards will bring pensions into the digital age. We are committed to working transparently with [the Money and Pensions Service] and industry as we make progress towards announcing the Dashboards Available Point.

"When it is announced, it will not come as a surprise, just as the timetable for introducing dashboards has been clearly set out well in advance.”