The government has confirmed pension schemes will not be required to connect to pensions dashboards until 2026.
Under previous plans, pension schemes were due to start connecting to dashboards from August 2023, with dashboards becoming available to the public in 2024.
Pensions minister Laura Trott insists the government remains “as committed as ever” to delivering pensions dashboards.
Trott also suggests dashboards could be made available to the public before all schemes are required by law to provide the necessary data
But delay raises questions over whether pensions dashboards will ever be created at all.
Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at AJ Bell, comments: “The industry and government have had years to prepare for pensions dashboards. The decision to push mandatory connection to dashboards beyond the next general election is hugely disappointing and people will understandably now question whether they will ever be created at all. Having been led up the dashboards hill multiple times by the government, savers and the pensions industry are now back at the bottom trying to figure out what the future may hold.
“Pensions dashboards have the potential to make life much easier for people trying to locate and ultimately combine retirement pots built up over the course of their working lives. Given research suggests the total value of ‘lost’ pension pots already stands at over £26 billion1, simplifying the process of finding these pots could be a game-changer for savers. Over time, dashboards could also act as a valuable engagement tool – but only if they are ever actually created in the first place.
“AJ Bell has always said that the priority is ensuring dashboards are safe and useful for UK savers, with as many people’s pensions as possible connected to the service. Rushing to launch dashboards without proper testing or with gaping holes in the data would clearly be foolish, but this news is still hugely disappointing.”
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