The Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) has today submitted its response to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) further consultation on the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022.
In its response, the SPP emphasised the following three areas in the proposed rules that needed modification, with a primary focus on the creation of a Dashboards Available Point.
In order to ensure that the industry (whether dashboard providers or pension providers) is prepared, SPP states that the industry should be informed of an anticipated Dashboards Available Point (DAP) and that it should be at least 12 months in advance.
SPP strongly prefers for at least 6 months to be given one final confirmation in order to allow time for final arrangements, provided 12 months’ notice is given. If this is not offered, there is a chance that members would suffer as a result of the disruption of services (such as the handling of death claims and bereavement cases). Delivery of pension dashboards runs the additional risk of being haphazard and chaotic, which would go against the policy’s intended goal.
SPP adds that it’s essential to keep any incremental DAP method from being expensive, complicated, or maybe ineffective. SPP believe that if access were controlled by the central Pensions Finder Service and linked to a crucial piece of information—the person’s date of birth—this could be accomplished.
Incremental DAPs may be helpful for all parties, according to SPP. From the perspective of an administrator and a dashboard provider, staging access to dashboards, maybe according to an individual’s age, would enable providers to launch dashboards to the general public in a controllable manner. Millions of savings having access on the same day might lead to extremely significant increases in demand.
According to SPP, the timing of incremental DAPs won’t need to take a lengthy time. Over a period of roughly 3-6 months, access to new member groups could be granted at intervals of 2-4 weeks.
SPP urges the DWP to add a clause for incremental DAPs in the next draught regulations so that such a strategy can be used even if just one DAP is ultimately chosen.
SPP says in order to maintain fairness, providers who desire to become Qualifying Pension Dashboard Services (QPDS) shall have an equal opportunity to obtain authorisation prior to the DAP. As a result, the DAP must be agreed upon by the DWP and FCA.
The DWP and FCA should clearly state that applications received before “X date” would be processed prior to the DAP in order to guarantee that no suppliers are given an undue advantage over others, according to SPP.
Society of Pension Professionals chair of the legislation committee Mark Bondi says: “The Society of Pension Professionals remains very supportive of the pensions dashboard. However, getting the Dashboards Available Point right will be central to the final, orderly rollout of dashboards to pension savers.
“The pensions industry needs at least 12 months’ advance notice of an anticipated Dashboards Available Point, to ensure the industry is in the final state of preparedness for an effective rollout, while incremental rollouts to different groups of pensions savers may make the administration of this key moment more manageable.
“As an industry, we will continue to work with regulators to finesse these final staging details, and ultimately deliver the successful rollout of the dashboards project.”
