The Government understands consumers’ need to see all their pensions together on apps on their phones – what we now call pensions dashboards.
But which political party originally had the idea to do dashboards? Conservative Chancellor George Osborne is commonly thought to have raised the concept, saying In his 2016 Budget speech: “The government will ensure industry designs, funds and launches a pensions dashboard …a digital interface where an individual can view all their retirement savings in one place”
But these comments drew on earlier recommendations. In 2014 the Financial Conduct Authority, under the Coalition Government, published findings of its study into the retirement income market, which recommended developing a ‘pensions dashboard’, so individuals could ‘view all their lifetime pension savings in one place’.
The Coalition Government might have coined the name but it can’t claim credit for an idea that was already 12 years old. In 2002, the same Labour green paper which created The Pensions Commission, proposed “the development of a web-based retirement planning tool, or Online Retirement Planner (ORP), enabling people to view total projected pension income (from all state, workplace & personal pension arrangements), including a facility to trace old pensions.”
Denmark had started its pensions dashboard development a few years earlier, in 1999, so the UK can reasonably claim to have the world’s second oldest dashboards initiative.
Initially the Labour Government made good progress. In 2003, Accenture won the contract to build the ORP, and in February 2004 Labour pension minister Malcolm Wicks announced it would be launched in spring 2006.
But if we know one thing, it’s that it’s always inadvisable for politicians to announce IT delivery dates – as events can cause things to change.
Here, the issue was a fundamental change to the underlying pensions system, with work by the Pensions Commission paving the way for the introduction of automatic enrolment and a new state pension.
This meant Accenture’s programme to build the ORP now faced an intractable problem: how do you build an online service to show people their total estimated retirement income when the fundamental aspects of the legislation (which defines that income) are changing?
In short, it didn’t make sense to do both simultaneously. I think it may well have been with a heavy heart that, in a written statement to Parliament in October 2006 the latest minster for pensions reform, James Parnell said development of this ORP would be suspended — although he added the government remained committed to the principle of providing people with information to support retirement planning.
Then, eight months later everything changed again, with Steve Jobs launching the iPhone, ushering in the era of smartphone apps.
Since then AE, and pension freedom reforms meant more people saving, with more choice, on top of the radically reformed building block of the state pension. But with the launch of Open Finance tech in 2018, there was finally the tech to deliver highly consumer-focused dashboards apps and websites.
Pensions dashboards are Labour’s original policy, and more than 20 years on it will be the current Labour government that will oversee
their launch. Of course, no one talks about just one dashboard anymore. It’s great for UK consumers that we’re following Norway’s phenomenal success in introducing commercial pensions dashboards on familiar apps which consumers already use and trust.
The industry is looking forward to collaborating closely with Government and regulators to support the launch of multiple FCA-regulated commercial dashboard to (known as Qualifying Pensions Dashboard Services, or QPDSs) to benefit millions of consumers.
But the launch will only be the start. Experience from Europe suggests after this there then follows a process of enhancement and iteration begins, based on extensive live consumer usage feedback.
The Danish dashboard mentioned earlier is now 25 years’ old and is up to Version 7. We should expect UK dashboards to be continually enhanced through the 2030s and 2040s.
But first, we must collaborate to bring Labour’s original idea to fruition, and launch version 1.0.