The Department of Work and Pensions has published a revised timetable of staging dates for connections to the pensions dashboard.
The largest schemes, which includes master trusts with 20,000 or more members have to connect by 30 April 2025.
Money purchase schemes used for automatic enrolment (with 5,000 or more members) and master trusts schemes with between 5,000 and 20,000 members have to connect a month later, by 31 May 2025.
A series of monthly deadlines is the given for schemes of different types and sizes. Most larger schemes will be required to be connected by 30 November 2025, with medium and smaller schemes having a later staging date of up to 30 September 2026.
The DWP says that there are two ways that trustees or managers and pensions scheme providers may opt to connect to the dashboards ecosystem. This will be by building their own in-house direct connection or buying the services from an integrated service provider or third part administrator
Referring to the publication of this revised timetable the pensions minister Paul Maynard said that subject to satisfactory testing, “the programme plans to begin the process of connecting the organisations building a direct connection, including DWP State Pension, from August 2024.”
Maynard said: “The staged timetable will help smooth the process of connecting the approximately 3,000 pension schemes and providers in scope by the connection deadline of 31 October 2026.
“The timetable prioritises connection of the largest pension schemes and providers, so that crucial user testing can quickly take place at scale, with the first cohort expected to have completed connection by the end of April 2025. Whilst the timetable is not mandatory, it is a legal requirement that trustees or managers of occupational pension schemes and providers of personal and stakeholder pensions have regard to this guidance.”
Dave Poynton Equisoft product manager and newly appointed PDP Advisory Board member welcomed this formal announcement today.
“This will give certainty to the project and enable pensions administrators to get board approval for their PDP projects to re-start as soon as possible. Even those companies who have not paused their projects will face challenges given the scale and complexity of the operational processes of the PDP.”