On the go: The Pensions Dashboards Programme is planning to start extensive testing with individuals, dashboard providers, and volunteer pension providers and schemes, after it publishes a first version of the pensions dashboards data standards this autumn.
In order to achieve this, the PDP — created by the Money and Pensions Service and formerly known as the Industry Delivery Group — issued on Monday a call for input on two papers published in April, which addressed options to achieve comprehensive coverage across all pension sectors and which data items could be included in the first version.
Pensions Expert reported at the time that the new requirements announced in the documents, which would see defined benefit pensions being translated into an annual income in today’s terms, could mean trustees and administrators will face a major data exercise to comply with the project.
In a blog published on PDP’s website, pensions minister Guy Opperman argued that “to fully realise the potential of dashboards, few things will be as important as getting the data standards right”.
He said: “The data standards will set out the information that pension providers and schemes will be required to show their customers and members via dashboards, and the format in which data will have to be supplied.”
Mr Opperman, who wrote to a number of large schemes to question their dashboard data readiness, noted that it is “in everyone’s interest that all relevant pension organisations are preparing their systems and data now, to help ensure dashboards launch successfully”.
Following the closure of the call for input on August 31, PDP aims to summarise stakeholders’ responses with a view to publishing a summary, it stated.
Meanwhile, the body is setting up a data working group to progress work on technical issues to enable PDP to produce a first set of data standards, which will be refined and finalised with the insights gathered from industry, it added.
