‘Dashboard’ for retirement funds late and over budget
Business@inews.co.uk
The Government’s much-vaunted pension dashboard scheme, designed to help people to better plan for retirement by being able to see all their pensions together online, is running late and is £54m over budget after being given over to a body which lacked the staff and capacity to do it, a spending watchdog said.
An estimated 16.3 million people could benefit from the pensions dashboard programme (PDP) which, when complete, will let taxpayers view vital information about their private, workplace and state pensions in one place.
However “capacity and capability issues, including a lack of digital skills and ineffective governance, have contributed to delays”, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report.
The pensions dashboard is meant to be one of the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP)’s flagship programmes and is part of the Government Major Projects Portfolio.
Despite this, the department delegated responsibility for delivery to the DWP-controlled Money and
Pensions Service (MaPS) without assurances that MaPS “had the capacity and capability to deliver a major digital programme such as the PDP”.
The report said the DWP had already been warned of problems by the Government’s own Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
The problems have led to a delay while the project is reset, and the DWP has yet to specify when the pensions dashboards will become available to taxpayers.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Delivery delays due to shortfalls in digital capacity and capability have pushed back the final deadline for pension providers and schemes to connect to the PDP by a year, with no date currently set for citizens to benefit.
“Though progress has been made during the reset, DWP and MaPS must continue to work closely to ensure the final stages of the PDP are delivered smoothly and the public can begin to have access to this important service.”
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, which will scrutinise the report, said: “Clear and simple pensions dashboards would help people properly understand their pensions – preventing them from missing out on entitlements hidden in ‘lost pots’ and helping them plan for their future.
“I am disappointed that the pensions dashboards programme has been delayed by a lack of skilled resources and ineffective governance – problems we see again and again across government.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “The pensions dashboards programme has made significant progress towards delivering a service which will transform how savers plan for their retirement.
“Action to reset the programme means connection testing will begin from August 2024 before a wider onboarding of pension schemes and providers from April 2025.”