Pensions dashboards and the importance of language

This test is designed to help people decide which is the most appropriate career, he explained. The idea is that the test matches an individual’s personality to a particular profession. Ultimately, they will choose a career aligned with their personality traits and this will lead to a more fulfilling career.

Certain answers I gave in the test were, apparently, important in determining my “appropriate career choice”. In answering questions about language, it appeared that I placed a high value on “correct” and “precise” usage and placed high importance on vocabulary and punctuation.

One of the questions that led to this conclusion gauged how precise the respondent was in the use of “few/many” and “more/ less”.   

It seems likely that the recent resignation by the former pensions minister Guy Opperman will result in a loss of some or most of the momentum behind the dashboards project — momentum that has built up over the past 18 months, thanks in part to him

Many lawyers of my acquaintance would say that, in law, how a person applies language is important. Pensions law, for instance, includes terms which, unless used accurately and precisely, can easily invoke the law of unintended consequences.

Importance of language

Moving away from law for a moment but staying with the importance of language, Clive James — sadly missed, but his writing lives on — wrote with a precision of language that could be called poetic.

Writing in 2009, James took issue with some of the language being used at the time to describe the then recent postal strike.

It struck me that the views he expressed then apply no less today. James disliked certain terms, such as those that evoked the opposite of the “something” they were supposed to describe. Industrial action, for instance, was and remains a term used to describe a situation where there is mainly industrial inaction. 

Industrial relations is a term used in situations where there are virtually no industrial relations. “Strike” is more accurate than industrial action, James said. This is not least because “strike” is short if not sweet and sounds like a blow, which is what it is meant to be.

Recently, there were rail strikes up and down the country. To prepare local commuters for the strike, my local train operator issued a number of announcements in which it was explained to commuters that a “limited service” — a term often used to mean lack of service — would be provided during the week of the strike.

Immediately after offering this limited service, the operator advised passengers not to travel at all, on account of the service.

Pensions dashboards concerns

Concern about unhelpful language returned as I read the latest news on pensions dashboards.

There has been a lot of debate about pensions dashboards and the latest debate concerns the possibility that the Department for Work and Pensions may give pension schemes 90 days’ notice before the “go live” or “dashboards available point” happens.

Some commentators have complained that 90 days constitutes insufficient notice. Schemes need more time to prepare for the day pensions dashboards will be available to us, and will be unable to cope if, let us say, a significant proportion of the population decides that it wishes to look at the “dashboard” immediately.

I am sceptical about this concern. Many people remain uninterested in pensions, and I know too many people who have access to a dashboard but ignore all the information on it.

More to the point, I have a concern more succinctly described in a novel by PG Wodehouse and featuring a butler called Jeeves. In one particular story, Jeeves suggests that a certain plan will not work because its success depends on two or more things happening, successfully, at the same time.

Jeeves would have similar misgivings about pensions dashboards. For them to “go live” successfully, there needs to be a certain conjunction of circumstances whereby a lot of things happen successfully in a co-ordinated manner.

These “things” include authorisation by the Pensions Regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Money and Pensions Service and the DWP. In addition, pension schemes will need to ensure they balance dashboard requirements with individuals’ rights under data protection legislation.

To me, it seems likely that the recent resignation by the former pensions minister Guy Opperman will result in a loss of some or most of the momentum behind the dashboards project — momentum that has built up over the past 18 months, thanks in part to him.

To revert to my original theme, there is a concern about the term “pensions dashboards”. “Dashboard” conjures up images of a screen offering information helpful to a driver.

As indicated, however, some drivers ignore dashboards completely or almost completely — equally dangerous. Others rely on them even when it is clear that a fault has caused incorrect information to appear. 

It is unclear what information pensions dashboards will be able to provide. If they are required to provide it in a hurry — although Opperman’s resignation suggests there will be no hurry — there must be a doubt about the amount of information, not to mention its accuracy and usefulness, that can be provided at all.

One concern is that a pension dashboard will not be able to do, in pension terms, what even the most basic motor dashboards do.

Put differently, there seems a lot of scope for error and delay. I hope that, in a month or so, I will be writing to explain how I was right to be sceptical but wrong about pensions dashboards.

In the meantime, perhaps a more precise description for a pension dashboard could be considered: a snare for snarks, a sieve for measuring water, a machine to count sand. Suggestions to Pensions Expert please.

Paul Carney is a partner at Shoosmiths