On the go: The Pensions Dashboards Programme has confirmed that its partner organisations, including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator, are set to begin work on progressing the dashboards programme.
In the latest progress update report, published on Tuesday, the PDP has confirmed that the FCA will begin a consultation next year on the regulatory requirements of the programme.
The consultation will cover the emerging details of the ecosystem design and build and will consider the FCA’s role in the areas of shared responsibility, on which it is working collaboratively with the PDP, the Money and Pensions Service, TPR and the government.
The process will be informed by the PDP’s user research and prototype testing.
Similarly, TPR is “gearing up” to provide clear, targeted, and timely education to trustees and managers on their new duties from 2022. It will also be engaging with advisers and service providers to ensure trustees receive the support they need.
TPR is also working to define and deliver the operational processes it will need to monitor and, if necessary, enforce compliance with the duties from 2023.
The Department for Work and Pensions will also consult on its proposals for secondary legislation with relevant parties this winter, focusing on data requirements, staged onboarding, the compliance regime, and consumer protection.
The DWP’s aim is to lay draft regulations before parliament for debate in 2022, to remain on schedule to support the delivery plan set out by the PDP, which indicated that the first pension schemes will be compelled to make data available to users via dashboards in 2023.
The programme is currently in the ‘develop and test’ phase and has been since September. This stage incorporates some initial alpha testing, as well as the ‘discovery’ phase with tech company Capgemini, which supplies the PDP with its central digital architecture.
Alongside Capgemini’s subcontractor Origo, the discovery phase will run until November.
This stage will include agreeing a governance structure, ways of working and acceptance criteria with Maps, setting up the collaboration agreement and preparing, refining and issuing the deliverables outlined in the tender document.
The PDP will also work on the onboarding and complaints processes, building on Maps’ user research, and will begin supporting the Government Digital Service with cyber security design, as well as the National Cyber Security Centre in planning for future penetration testing.
Earlier in October, concerns around the ability of schemes to supply estimated retirement income figures were published by the PDP following a call for industry input. The findings prompted the PDP to undertake additional research into how the data will be displayed to users.
