PASA today published new Guidance to support the industry in preparing to deliver pensions dashboards. This Guidance is designed to provide trustees, managers, sponsors, administrators and providers with ‘good practice’ approaches to providing value data to pensions dashboards. The Guidance is designed for use by both Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Schemes and covers twenty topics including possible approaches for dealing with issues such late retirements, underpins, partial retirements and split normal retirement ages.
PASA Chair, Kim Gubler, commented: “In some areas, the Dashboard Regulations and Standards are unlikely to provide the level of detail needed. This is intentional so schemes can decide the best approach according to their rules and circumstances to provide the optimum solution for their savers. This Guidance is designed to help schemes avoid considering the same issues from scratch.
Geraldine Brassett, Chair of the Scheme Configuration Sub-Group of the Pensions Dashboards Working Group said: “PASA is very grateful to all those who have contributed to this substantial piece of guidance. It’s important the Guidance is easy to use and includes suggestions for how to address these particular scenarios. Our other objectives include:
- helping to provide savers with a consistent approach to the information provided to dashboards
- supporting the cost effective delivery of pensions dashboard including the option of reusing information already provided to savers and which they will be familiar with
- minimising the possible additional strain on operational delivery immediately after the Dashboards Available Point (DAP) and on an ongoing basis
We recognise there are further areas to consider, and we expect to issue further Guidance over the coming months.
The Pension Regulator’s Director of Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice, Lou Davey, said: “We welcome this guidance from PASA and would encourage schemes, and those who support them, to read and consider the Guidance – which provides useful examples to consider when calculating values for dashboards, encouraging a consistent approach across schemes which will ultimately be of benefit to savers”.
The new PASA Guidance can be found here.
