Pension Dashboard - Distressing to see the reasons behind the interminable delays

Silvertabby

The trouble with the pensions dashboard will be the expectations.  ie, people will log in, and expect to see the little bits of private sector pensions that they (may have) paid into and then lost track of decades ago.

Reality will be that the first listing will be the State pension, followed by current Public sector pensions.  But I can see that details of long deferred public sector pensions will take some time to appear. And, of course, old service long since taken as a long forgotten refund won't appear at all.

Even the best run private sector schemes won't be loaded overnight, as they should also be subject to some form of checking procedures before being transferred.  Point... do some  private sector schemes identify their members by NI numbers or just their own scheme reference numbers?  If the latter, then that would surely be a huge stumbling block?

As for small private schemes run by companies that have long gone bust or schemes that have been passed on to other providers.....

NoMore

Silvertabby said:

  Point... do some  private sector schemes identify their members by NI numbers or just their own scheme reference numbers?  If the latter, then that would surely be a huge stumbling block?

AIUI this is indeed a stumbling block as there is no defined universal way Pensions use to identify members, moving everybody to NI number would be a solution.

poseidon1

robatwork said:

TheBanker said:

Beddie said:

A pensions dashboard is a very difficult project to deliver. Look at all the issues people mention on here with companies and their legacy systems. So I am going to cut them some slack, as they are up against an almost impossible task.

They should perhaps try to get 90% of providers on board, by volume, and accept that the last bit will be too difficult. That should help with younger people who move jobs more often, but will usually be with the main providers of pensions to businesses now.

You could draw parallels with Open Banking. Lots of different banks, with lots of different legacy systems, but all of the main banks managed to implement it (as they were mandated to by regulators), and a lot of the smaller/newer banks have been able to join.

Is a Pensions Dashboard really much more complex? It doesn't even need to be real time, given the nature of pensions. 

I had a very similar thought. Never felt the need to use open banking - probably 25% a "not entirely trusting the process/particular bank" and 75% "just don't see the need".  If it was a centralised established system (which is how I envisage the pensions dashboard would be) rather than each bank having the dashboard I may feel differently.  

Nobody I know uses open banking in any case - I wonder how many people on this thread make use of it.

I use open banking functionality extensively. Previously via the now extinct Moneydashboard app, but now via the more sophisticated Moneyhub app.

Since I have a multitude of current/savings/credit card accounts and have switched off receipt of paper statements years ago, for me Moneyhub is an effective one stop resource to track movements across the majority of my accounts without the necessity of logging into each individually.

As an additional byproduct, it also serves as a rough networth calculator since one can also pull in sipp data ( via links to the leading DIY investment platforms) as well approximate property valuations.

Since Moneyhub is also a budgeting and modelling app, it will greatly assist me  in completing my annual tax return, since all the different untaxed sources of income ( rents, bank interest, stockmarket dividends etc ) passing through the various bank accounts have been identified, collated and summarised for the tax year, and assist with reconciling year end tax certificates from the various savings and investment institutions.

Certainly from my perspective a great time saver, but perhaps only because of multiple accounts and diverse investment income streams I chose to establish.

robatwork

@poseidon1
Interesting that you use it through a 3rd party hub/app in a similar way top how the pensions dashboard should work, rather than using one of your existing bank apps. Any downsides?

poseidon1

robatwork said:

@poseidon1
Interesting that you use it through a 3rd party hub/app in a similar way top how the pensions dashboard should work, rather than using one of your existing bank apps. Any downsides?

No insurmountable downsides I can think of except certain saving providers like Kent Reliance and Charter Savings bank have not signed up to open banking, so their balances i enter and update manually when needed. No major problem in that  their balances remain fixed since all monthly  interest is mandated direct to bank current accounts and spent.

There is also  the fact that after the 6 month free trial period, there is a small £15 annual subscription fee . However still considerably cheaper than other competing budgeting apps, which dont have Moneyhub's functionality.

Open banking via my own banks would have zero organisational and analytic functionality or abilty to customise or add non open banking financial entities. They are simply limited  'read only'  services.

 The £15 I pay is a very cheap price to assist with my  data collating for self assessment tax return purposes.   I don't use or need Moneyhubs budgeting functions but no doubt that would assist those who do.

I would certainly recommend giving it a try over the 6 month free trial period if you have multiple bank /credit card accounts and even investment/pension accounts ( eg ii, HL, Pension Bee, Trading 212 etc - quite an extensive list actually).  Seems to one of those services you can configure to your own requirements. Use what works for you, ignore the rest.

RogerPensionGuy

eskbanker said:

zagfles said:

HMRC are closing the self assessment helpline for 6 months!

That proposal only lasted 24 hours, or has it been resuscitated?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6514783/swift-hmrc-u-turn-on-self-assessment-helpline-closure

Reference the U turn on this item, unfortunately there is apparently no real magic tree and therfore the shortfalls in this item will just get mixed up with so many other items and people should just get used of poor service.

Think I heard an interview on the radio last week saying the dashboard has been delayed another two years till tail end of 2026 and the person commenting on behalf of the government wasn't much kean on putting their name against confirming tail end of 2026 was 100% guaranteed. 

It's a nice tin can, this government will keep kicking it and the new government can kick it and blame the previous government for leaving such a mess, 2026 can be kicked till 2028 and then probably get a system not fit for purpose etc. 

hyubh

hugheskevi said:

• for DB actives, we're just looking at statutory ABS figures. 

It is not just statutory ABS figures for actives, as they do not include forecasts of future accrual that are required for ERI so new processes have to be developed. As they are forecast under prescribed Dashboard assumptions around future earnings (necessary for consistency), these are going to be inconsistent with other things such as scheme-specific benefit modellers, 2015 Remedy modellers and such-like. Depending on the default settings of the other modellers, the differences compounded over many years may be significant and confusing to members.

I do not understand how you reach that conclusion, given the legislation stipulates 'a projected value calculated in accordance with the scheme’s rules and without regard to possible increases in earnings, that would be payable from the date benefits are payable if pensionable service were to end on the member reaching their retirement date'. 

For public service schemes, the requirement to provide both McCloud options is expressly intended to align with future ABS requirements.  

There are also issues for schemes planning to use data from last ABS where an ABS does not yet exist, as data has to be supplied no more than 3 months after joining when a new member seeks view data, and an ABS may well not exist for such members. That is a wider issue than just ERI of course.

Yes, such things have been (and are being) matters for discussion with PDP.

hyubh

LHW99 said:

Instead, the model is for public-facing dashboards to send matching data to an outsourced central identity service, which verifies the information received then sends it on to all registered schemes (or more exactly, all registered scheme data providers).

Capita? ......... Sopra Steria? ........... Experian?

No, not them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65746518

Irrelevant, the central identity service does not administer member data.

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1898079/China-attacks-mod-supplier

Alas but I can't access that fine upstanding news source.

https://www.techradar.com/news/identity-thieves-crack-major-experian-security-flaw-access-customer-credit-reports

Not sure why you think this is relevant. From the article:

The idea was simple - if you had the victim’s name, address, birthday and Social Security number (all of which might be obtained from a previous incident), you could go to one of the websites offering free credit reports, and submit the data to request one. At that point, the website would redirect you to the Experian website where you’d be required to submit more personally identifiable information, such as questions about previous addresses of living and such.

And here is where the flaw is exploitable. There is no need to answer any of those questions - all you’d need to do at this point is simply change the address displayed in the URL bar, from “/acr/oow/” to “/acr/report,” and you’d be presented with the report. 

That's not how the Dashboard APIs work (https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/standards/technical-standards/).

hyubh

Silvertabby said:

The trouble with the pensions dashboard will be the expectations.  ie, people will log in, and expect to see the little bits of private sector pensions that they (may have) paid into and then lost track of decades ago.

Reality will be that the first listing will be the State pension, followed by current Public sector pensions.  But I can see that details of long deferred public sector pensions will take some time to appear

Why...? Heywood in particular (flush with PE cash following the Aquila guys selling out) are extremely keen to see their clients meet their statutory requirements. And even beyond them, no software supplier is OK with allowing a third party ISP in on the act...

And, of course, old service long since taken as a long forgotten refund won't appear at all.

Unfortunate, as would have made for a good opportunity for many E&W LGPS funds to get shot of old frozen refunds, but alas the government didn't see the need. Maybe get them in once Dashboard is established (and a new government is in place)...?

Even the best run private sector schemes won't be loaded overnight, as they should also be subject to some form of checking procedures before being transferred. 

Any supplier worth its salt is trying to flog a 'dashboard readiness report'. Whether schemes should bother is another question (what you can usually expect is a rehash of TPR common data scoring with some member matching analysis. Meh. And I write that as someone involved in the development of one example).

Point... do some  private sector schemes identify their members by NI numbers or just their own scheme reference numbers?  If the latter, then that would surely be a huge stumbling block?

NI number is a TPR common data item, so by definition it is something that should be recorded regardless of private or public sector, DB or DC.

As for small private schemes run by companies that have long gone bust or schemes that have been passed on to other providers.....

If they've gone bust then the scheme is probably in the PPF, so there's no pension to find. If it hasn't, well mergers and acquisitions was just a fact of life in the heyday of private sector DB. This doesn't present any special difficulty in getting data onto Dashboard, rather it's a similar situation to someone with an LGPS record that has involved aggregations and/or interfunds over time.

Silvertabby

hyubh said:

Silvertabby said:

And, of course, old service long since taken as a long forgotten refund won't appear at all.

Unfortunate, as would have made for a good opportunity for many E&W LGPS funds to get shot of old frozen refunds, but alas the government didn't see the need. Maybe get them in once Dashboard is established (and a new government is in place)...?

I was referring to refunds actually paid out yonks ago.  The LGPS I worked for certainly had computerised records for even the oldest frozen refunds, and would regularly try to make contact with their owners in order to get rid of them.  Unfortunately, I suspect that many of the tracing letters went straight onto the bin as 'scam'.  Transferring them to the pensions dashboard could help, but they would have to be recorded in a separate section as they aren't actual pensions. 

Whenever you-know-who ran a 'be sure to collect your old pensions' campaign we would be flooded with calls from people who had left decades before.  'Nil remaining benefits' records weren't computerised, so a demand for pension details involved a cross campus hike to the paper archives.  Then trying to convince the enquirer that they did take a refund of their pension contributions way back when, even if they couldn't remember getting the money.  Really didn't appreciate you-know-whos advice 'not to take no for an answer - if you are sure that you have a pension then insist that they find it for you'.