I’m watching the Work and Pensions Committee evidence session on dashboards that took place yesterday. Excellent evidence from Richard Smith, Kim Gubler, Brian Byrnes, and Maurice Titley. I really enjoyed the impassioned statement from the indefatigable Richard Smith on how dashboards will be game changers for future pensioners.
Richard’s key message was that if we don’t properly regulate dashboards, we won’t be able to harness that moment when people, using the dashboard for the first time, realise that they aren’t saving enough. There needs to be the facility for people to easily access services that immediately offer practical ways to approach increasing savings. However, Richard was concerned that we are not close enough to completing the regulated dashboards to meet the current deadline for launch.
Kim pointed out the difficulties that companies are facing in complying with the data requirements. She told the committee that many small and medium schemes do not have their data fully digitised. This is something that has been a little glossed over I think. A lot of the delays in the dashboard have been caused by difficulties in reconciling the need for data from schemes and the difficulties in matching people when we lack a robust national identity number. Brian and Maurice were also concerned about the difficulties of matching people to their savings.
I have been told in the past that some, older, legacy schemes have fully paper based records which are unlikely ever to make it onto the dashboards. I have not heard this discussed publicly though… are some pots never going to be traceable?
Maurice pointed out that there is no central database/ecosystem of the data needed by dashboards, so there are several platforms being developed to help schemes provide data. It concerned me to hear that there were around 20 of these. Do we need one, single central platform? The Government suggested that a clearing house would be set up to support its multiple default consolidator model. Do we need a similar central platform to support dashboards?
The Committee and the wider stakeholder community are focused on the dashboard delays, and whether the new deadline will be met. This is understandable, as there is a growing need from those who have been automatically enrolled to be able to view past and present pots, and to start making decisions about future contribution levels. However, we cannot overestimate the size of the task facing industry. Dashboards are requiring a revolution in how data is collected and reported and it is requiring schemes to develop and work with new infrastructure. There are significant barriers, e.g., lack of digital records and lack of robust matching criteria. Alongside this, there are Richard’s concerns that the facilities won’t be in place to help people when they are most open to taking action.
I do wonder whether we have done this whole process backwards. What if the Government had built the infrastructure first (with industry collaboration) and then required schemes to comply? Rather than requiring/allowing industry to make its own arrangements which we can already see are relatively piecemeal? I imagine there will be quite a lot of iteration and problem solving even post launch as it is…
I will say though, that this is a fascinating session, well worth a watch! And thank you Richard for introducing us to the phrase “industry/government sandwich”! 😊
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