Pensions dashboards town hall – looking forward together

On 2 December 2024, the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) were delighted to host a ‘town hall’ event, led by the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), bringing together a wide range of people involved in making pensions dashboards a reality. Representatives from the Government, regulators and industry joined us for a whole day at Church House in Westminster to look at work over the last 12 months, and discuss how dashboards will progress in 2025 and beyond.

It was great to have the opportunity for industry to feedback and ask questions. We had a fantastic turnout, and we are extremely grateful to everyone who made the effort to be there in person.

Momentum towards connection

In the morning, attendees heard from MaPS, including the CEO and representatives from PDP, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about the increasing pace towards dashboards. MaPS CEO Oliver Morley explained how dashboards will support the organisation’s goals to help people make the most of their money. PDP’s work to develop the digital architecture for dashboards and facilitate industry connection to the ecosystem sits alongside the development of the MoneyHelper dashboard by MaPS.

In October, DWP announced the MoneyHelper dashboard will be prioritised ahead of launching commercial dashboards. Jackie Spencer, head of money and pensions policy at MaPS, gave an update on the MoneyHelper dashboard and preparations for user testing.

Earlier this year, DWP published guidance stating that connection with wider industry would begin in 2025. Iain Patterson, PDP’s senior responsible owner, and Kim Webb, the programme director, updated on connection with 20-plus 'volunteer participants' the organisations building a direct connection the dashboards ecosystem, through which the vast majority of pension providers and schemes will share data. Iain and Kim announced that 2 volunteer participants had completed integration testing, with 8 having started their connection journeys.

Iain and Kim stressed that wider industry connection will start as planned from April 2025. With organisations facing varying levels of readiness, not all volunteer participants may have completed connection by then. However, they reassured pension providers and schemes that regulators wouldn’t take action against an organisation unable to connect because they depend on a volunteer participant that may not have completed the process.

Industry feedback

In the afternoon, we had a variety of sessions. The MoneyHelper dashboard team provided a preview of the MoneyHelper dashboard which was very well-received. GOV.UK One Login led a breakout session on the identity service, and took questions from industry. There were also panel discussions sharing lessons from connecting volunteer participants.

The day ended with an open Q&A session with attendees, including asking PDP what success will look like in 2025. After the town hall, I caught up with some industry attendees, to find out how they found the day.

Geraldine Brassett from WTW said:

Kim Gubler from KGC Associates added:

Looking forward to 2025

The main message repeated at this event is that we are on course for connection with wider industry to get underway next year, and pension providers and schemes need to keep going with their preparations. Work will also get underway with industry to explore the opportunities and challenges of preparing for commercial dashboards. Being in this position is only possible because of the collective effort on the part of so many in industry, the Government and regulators.

I want to say thank you to everyone who made this day possible, from the organisers and the people running the event on the day, to the attendees who made time to be there. PDP hopes to run more events with industry next year and we’ll share more details over the coming months.