An update on Pensions Dashboards
What are Pensions Dashboards?
The Pensions Dashboards Programme is a government-led initiative designed to help individuals better manage and understand their pension savings. Pensions dashboards are online tools that will allow savers like you to view all your pension benefits from multiple schemes (including the State Pension) in one place. This could make retirement planning much easier for millions, by giving a clear and consistent view of how much their combined benefits are worth and what sort of income they can expect when taking them.
Did you know that UK workers have lost track of an estimated 1.6 million workplace pension pots worth a total of £19.4 billion?1 These pension pots are often ‘lost’ when people move jobs and lose contact with their previous pension scheme providers. Pensions Dashboards could help reduce this figure as all pension pot figures and information will be securely available in one place.
Key updates for 2024
- Large schemes (those with more than 1,000 members) must be connected to the dashboards by the end of 2025. The other schemes will then follow in 2026. All schemes and providers in scope are legally required to be connected and ready to respond to requests for pensions information by 31 October 2026 at the latest.
- The dashboards are being tested with sample data in 2024, and further testing with live data is expected to start in 2025.
- The date at which dashboards will be publicly available hasn’t yet been confirmed, but we’ll let you know as soon as the announcement is made. It’s possible that not all your pensions will be available to view from day one.
What can you do in the meantime?
The dashboards will work by using your personal data to find your pension(s). It’s therefore very important that any pension schemes you’re in have the correct details on file for you. You can check that we have the right ones by logging into the Lilly Plan Portal – just click the “Pension Portal” link at the top of the page.
If you’ve lost contact with your old pensions visit the Pension Tracing Service. The Pension Tracing Service can give you up-to-date contact details for any schemes you might be a member of, so that you can get in touch with them and update your personal information.
We’ll keep you posted on further developments as we hear more. We’re confident that pensions dashboards will be worth the wait – but you don’t need to wait until they’re here to start planning your financial future!
1 The Association of British Insurers