Policy background
- Pensions dashboards are an electronic communications service, which will allow individuals to see their pensions information (including the State Pension) in one place online. Dashboards will help individuals to be reunited with lost pensions and support people in better planning for their retirement.
- The Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 ("the Regulations") set out measures that need to be put in place to enable pensions dashboards to operate effectively. The Regulations place requirements on trustees or managers of relevant occupational pension schemes to connect their scheme to the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) digital infrastructure for dashboards. Once connected, schemes will be required to respond to requests from individuals to find and view their pensions information, which must be returned via the individual’s chosen dashboard in accordance with the Regulations and the relevant standards. The Financial Conduct Authority has published separate rules for personal and stakeholder pension schemes.
- Pensions dashboard services will be made available to the public at a future date yet to be determined, known as the Dashboards Available Point (DAP). The Regulations provide for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to publish advance notice of the DAP.
- If a trustee or manager of an occupational pension scheme fails to comply with the Regulations, the Pensions Regulator may take enforcement action which could include a financial penalty. For context, the maximum penalties for a failure or contravention of the Regulations are £5,000 if the person is an individual or £50,000 if the person is a body corporate including corporate trustees. The Regulations also allow for multiple penalty notices to be issued by the Pensions Regulator in the event of multiple compliance breaches from a single event.
- The Act makes it a specific criminal offence for pension scheme trustees or managers to reimburse themselves using the assets of the pension scheme in respect of penalties imposed under the Regulations. It achieves this by amending section 256(1)(b) of the Pensions Act 2004 (which makes similar provision for other areas of pensions legislation) to include the relevant pensions dashboards legislation.
