The creation of a pensions dashboard for consumers to see all their retirement pots in one place will be down to the industry, as the government stopped short of putting in motion any legislation in support of the initiative in the Queen’s Speech.
The omission of the project from the Pensions Bill is expected to put an end to an increasingly heated debate in the industry about who should be in charge of driving forward the development of the dashboard.
The government set a deadline for its implementation at the March Budget when it said it will ensure the industry “designs, funds and launches” the project by 2019.
Pensions minister Ros Altmann had previously suggested the industry was not ready for any swift implementation of the dashboard, warning it was too fragmented.
Her predecessor, now policy director at Royal London, Steve Webb, told an event in May data challenges could be overcome and the government had to step in to drive the initiative forward.
There is concern some providers may be reluctant to hand over data unless they have to, potentially leading to a less comprehensive service.
But chairman of workplace pensions regulator The Pensions Regulator Mark Boyle said he wanted providers to volunteer their data to the dashboard rather than be compelled to do so.
He said he believed legislating to force providers to supply data to the dashboard was not currently needed, as the commitment was already in place to get the project off the ground.
Scottish Widows head of industry development Peter Glancy said the Queen’s Speech omission was a “real missed opportunity”.
“We’re disappointed that the pensions dashboard initiative has not been included in the Pensions Bill. A legislative intervention is needed to move this initiative along.
“The absolute benefit to pension customers of having one easily accessible place to obtain all of the information about past and present pension plans and schemes is irrefutable. But this must apply to all pension schemes – including the State Pension and occupational schemes.
“People using the dashboard as the source of truth regarding all of their pensions are easily going to lose confidence in the system if some schemes or plans are missing.”
Aviva head of policy John Lawson said: “Rather than wait for government to legislate, we believe that a progressive coalition of providers, government, regulators and consumer representatives could deliver a solution faster. We remain focused on ensuring that we can work as an industry to deliver a dashboard as quickly as possible.”
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