The Government has restated its commitment to delivering pensions dashboards in a written statement.
Dashboards forum: Programme and regulator update
PDP Principal Chris Curry gives an update on recent programme milestones such as standards approvals, connection of the first pensions dashboards participants, and provides insights on user testing plans.
PDP and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) provide an update on obtaining and using registration codes, an important step in connecting to dashboards.
This session includes questions and answers. More questions and answers will be published here shortly after the event.
Dashboards forum: Programme and regulator update
Read the transcript
Read the transcript
Julie Anderson-Hill
A very good afternoon and a very warm welcome to our dashboards forum. It's great that so many of you have been able to join us for today's session. We'll start the session by hearing a programme update from our programme Principal Chris Curry, who I know many of you know. We will then hear from our business analyst Paul Redstone on where and how registration codes are used. And this is going to lead us on to our regulatory colleague, Angela Bell from TPR around the topic of registration codes, including how to apply for them and how to use them in order to connect to the PDP ecosystem. Unfortunately, our FCA colleague is unable to join us today. But they have provided slides, so I'm going to do a double act with TPR when we get to the FCA slide and pass back to Angela shortly afterwards. We'd like to give you the opportunity of asking as many questions as possible from today's session by using the Q&A function, but would also caveat that we may not have time in the session to respond to all and there may be some questions that we need to take away and share with our SME's our subject matter experts. We will aim to provide written responses to questions, along with a copy of the slides on our website shortly. And we've allowed an hour for today's session, but we anticipate it will may just last about 45 minutes rather than the scheduled hour subject to the questions asked. So without further ado, I would like to welcome our PDP Principal for the programme, Chris Curry, who will provide a programme update on the programme. Thank you. Over to you, Chris.
Chris Curry
Thanks very much, Julie. Good afternoon, everybody. Delighted to see so many of you here again for the latest update and webinar from the Pensions Dashboards Programme. I'm going to spend about 10 minutes or so just letting you know where we are in terms of the programme, so I'm going to cover a little bit about the connection journey we're undertaking at the moment with our volunteer participants, what that means for the wider industry and then touch a little bit on progress around the MoneyHelper dashboard and private sector dashboards.
As well, and as Julie said, always happy to take questions at the end of this session as well. So please do start putting them into the Q&A as you think of them. So as I'm sure many of you are aware, we've been working very closely with around 20 volunteer participants for the last few months made-up of pension providers and schemes, third-party administrators and integrated service providers or ISPs. So these are the organizations that are building a direct route to connection with the dashboards ecosystem. And as part of our delivery plan, they've been going through the connection process in order to make sure that we're ready for the start of the wider industry connection dates in guidance, which I'm sure many of you are very well aware, actually starts at the end of this month.
So I'm very pleased to say that all of our volunteer participants have started their connection journeys and are at different various stages of the process as we go through. But they're all making good progress, which is great to see.
And I'm also delighted to be able to say that in early March, the first 3 volunteer participants completed the final stages of their testing and have therefore successfully connected to the dashboard ecosystem, which is opening the way for providers and schemes to be connected, so a very import and very welcome milestone for the programme. But as these first 3 and others subsequently, we've got another about one quarter have been through the integration testing process and a similar number are going through that at the moment. But as each organization has moved through that process, we've carefully monitored how well they're doing before we invite the next volunteer participants to get into that next stage. And that's allowed us really to try and test and refine the process for connection and to generate valuable insights for those that are following beyond. So actually it's been a really good experience.
We've been continuously learning from our VPs as they go through the connection journey and their invaluable feedback and their practical experience have been really helpful in both identifying issues but also allowing us to make improvements to guidance, supporting documentation and our backstage processes, which should make the journey for all those that follow much better. So really over the first few months of this year, our primary focus has been on continuing the connection journey with those VPs and aiming to get as many of those possible connected by the end of April. I will ask you to remember that I think it is fair to say that we will not have all of them connected by the end of April and I'll come on to what the implications of that are as well in a minute. But we've made really good progress and this is so the connection with the wider industry can begin this month as we had currently planned.
Now, although there is a guidance date for April this year, the key date that we're all keeping a very keen eye on and looking at is the regulatory deadline when all providers and schemes in scope for dashboards must connect by. And that's the 31 October 2026 and we are very, very confident that all schemes will have had an opportunity to connect well in advance of those, and so we're continuing to work towards the connection timetable that was set out in guidance by the DWP just over 12 months ago now, and as you'll all be aware, I'm sure the first cohort of pension providers and schemes is expected to be ready for connection to the ecosystem under that connection timetable by the end of April 2025 - this month.
Now again as a reminder, while the connect by dates in the DWP's connection guidance aren't statutory, so they're not a regulatory requirement, providers and schemes are required to have regard to the guidance. In other words, they need to demonstrate how they've considered the guidance when making decisions or taking actions in relating to preparing to connect to dashboards. Now, as you will recall from a couple of minutes ago, I mentioned that we won't have had all of the voluntary participants, so all of those integrated service providers or schemes that are handling connection, completely through the testing process by the end of April or by the end of this month. And as a result, that means that we are aware that some of those organisations that have ‘connect by’ dates in guidance of the end of April, and potentially getting into the end of May and part of June as well, will not be able to connect because that connection process is not quite ready for them.
Now the regulators, and I'm sure they'll confirm later on this call, are very well aware of that situation have been working very closely with us over the last few months and they are committed to taking a pragmatic approach to compliance and really are focused on member outcomes more than anything else. So they'll consider a range of factors before deciding whether to take any regulatory action, including the nature and scale of the impact on members and the number of members affected. But it is very clear that there will be no regulatory intervention if a provider or a scheme is unable to connect by April 2025 or any of the other of their guidance ‘connect by’ date solely because their third-party connector is a volunteer provider or volunteer participant, which is yet to complete their connection with PDP.
So I'd like to make sure that everyone goes away with that message and that that is something which people are very aware of. Now, if that is the situation, then PDP will work very closely with the volunteer participants to reschedule their connection slots if it becomes necessary. But again, to reassure people, we have the capacity within the PDP to make sure that we can do that without there being undue delays to anybody in their connection process.
And as I said at the start, just to reiterate, all providers and schemes will be able to connect far in advance of the mandatory connection deadline of the 31 October 2026. Now, while we've been doing a lot of work on the connection space, there's also been a lot of work going on at the other end of the process on both the MoneyHelper pensions dashboards and the private sector dashboards journey.
So as you will recall, October last year, there was an announcement that the MoneyHelper dashboard will be the first to connect to our ecosystem. And our aim is for that dashboard to be made available to the public at the earliest possible point. And really, there's a number of reasons for that. It will ensure greater confidence in operational delivery, security and consumer protection, but perhaps more importantly, will help generate valuable insights into user behaviour which will be instrumental in shaping future iterations of dashboards.
So the MoneyHelper dashboard will sit on the MoneyHelper website. It will follow the same look and feel accessibility and design principles of MoneyHelper. And as I'm sure many of you who are on the call, I think towards the end of January will remember we've already started to share a prototype with industry to demonstrate what the dashboard will look like and some of its functionality. And thank you for those of you that provided feedback. We're reviewing all the feedback we receive to make sure that we can deliver a high-quality product as part of that.
So the decision for when the MoneyHelper dashboard will be made public will be informed by a range of factors, some of which I'll come on to in the consumer testing space. But really, we want to make sure that the service is safe, secure and reliable before it is launched and those factors will be monitored by us, ourselves, the regulators and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Now, alongside the work on the MoneyHelper dashboard, the government remains committed to private sector dashboards and ensuring that people can access their pensions information in the way that works best for them. So we've been working very closely with potential dashboard providers and also the DWP and the regulators. On looking at a pathway for development and implementation of private sector dashboards and in the past month or so, we've held a couple of internal workshops with all our delivery partners and with industry roundtables and potential private sector providers. And we've had a couple of pre discovery sessions as well, which are all going in to inform progress on a pathway for private sector dashboards, for their connection to the ecosystem which we're planning to publish later this year.
And also just as a reminder, in November last year the FCA published its rules around qualifying pensions dashboard services and the regulatory framework will make sure that firms providing the pensions dashboard do not introduce or amplify the potential for consumer harm.
And if you want to have a look at these rules they're available on the FCA website.
Now, before I hand over to our other speakers just a little word on consumer testing because I think this is going to be one of the key focuses of the next few months, especially once we get the connection process underway and one of the reasons why we're so keen on getting those connections and getting providers connected into the ecosystem is to provide us with real data and information and real live users in order to undertake consumer testing, so once we get those first pension providers connected, we will really be starting the all important testing with real people on a real dashboard, to receive real data about their own pensions and we think that's going to, that's going to generate a lot of really interesting information.
I mean, it's crucial in itself to demonstrate that the end-to-end user experience of the service is positive and that it's safe, so some of those criteria I mentioned about how we can decide when dashboard should be made available to the public, but really that the service meets user's needs. So we've already done a lot of testing throughout the programme, both on the connection testing, but also for the MoneyHelper pensions dashboard with the prototypes that you've already seen and that will continue to inform the ongoing design and development of the dashboard service going forward.
But other potential dashboard providers will also need to carry out their own user research with prototypes, which could help tailor some of those offerings to different settings and different users as we go through. But the testing that we will plan for this year with real users viewing the actual data will be starting in the summer of this year and will be taking place in 2 phases. So the first phase from the summer of 2025 will be moderated testing relatively small-scale, recruiting users who probably have a little bit more pensions information and research panel members to really test some of the safety and security aspects of what we're looking at.
The second phase likely to start in the autumn of this year will be unmoderated. Testing where we're looking to recruit participants to a panel from pension providers and schemes who have connected. And we have consulted with industry to see how best we can collaborate and bring their scheme members into this testing phase to help the MoneyHelper dashboard service, and we're currently processing the industry feedback and our intention is to publish the baseline user testing plan in the coming weeks, so please do watch this space.
So finally, just a couple of other things to make you aware of, so we have been publishing some things which hopefully are very helpful on the website. So in particular, we published guidance on how to connect directly and on how to connect through a third party and this information can be found in the connection hub on the PDP website and another very important milestone that happened back in March as well, because of course as part of connection pension providers and schemes need to adhere to the standards, which are kind of the way in which we can interpret the regulations and these can be found on the pensions dashboards programme website. But more importantly, earlier this month the standards were formally approved by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions so they now are officially a part of the legislative framework, and those versions of the standards (versions 2.0) are now in force.
So if you need to refresh your mind of those, please do have a look at the website and generally I would also recommend looking at the website as the best way of keeping in touch. Looking at our newsletters, registering for further information to be provided and to make sure that you're kept abreast of events such as these and other forms of communication that we offer as part of the service from the Pensions Dashboards Programme.
That was the update that I wanted to give. I'm sure there will be plenty of questions which I look forward to answering later on, but for now I will hand you over to Paul Redstone who is going to talk a little bit about where registration codes fit in the connection journey.
So, Paul, over to you.
Paul Redstone
Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon to everyone.
So if you can just see this slide, just going to briefly talk about where registration codes fit in. So as you can see, your connection provider will either advise when to apply or when to expect a code depending on who your regulated by. Once you've received the registration code from your regulator. So, once the pension provider or scheme is received, the code from your regulator, you'll then need to agree with your connection provider the preferred connection date and you'll need to give the registration code and your regulator details to your connection provider. So that's your whether you're regulated by the FCA or TPR and whatever your PSR or FRN is.
They will then use those details to register on the connection portal.
So this is sort of to differentiate between registration and connection. And registration happens there. So they'll then provide those details. We'll then check that the codes are valid and they match the regulator details provided and we'll confirm that the connection date is acceptable. In some circumstances, we might need to change a connection date, but that's not very likely. Then the pension provider or scheme will connect on the connection date that's been agreed.
So that's the sort of differentiation. So there, there can be a gap between when registration happens and is confirmed, and then the date. So, you can register in advance, your connection provider can register in advance and the actual connection will happen on the connection date and your connection provider will be able to see that in the connection portal that your status is switched to registered. And that completes connection. So, sort of from a high level, that's the sort of journey for a pension provider or scheme. So I think I'm handing on to Angela.
Angela Bell
Brilliant. Thanks Paul.
And it's really helpful actually to see that and understand more about where registration codes fits into the overall connection journey. Now as a really quick introduction, I work as part of the dashboards of TPR’s dashboards, industry engagement team and our role is, unsurprisingly, to engage with industry about dashboards to better understand what's happening at the coalface, so to speak.
We meet regularly, not just with schemes, but crucially with those supporting schemes. So, with third-party administrators, ISPs (or integrated service providers to give them their full name), legal firms, professional trustee firms and industry bodies. Our discussions focus around what's going well with their dashboards preparations and also where challenges and issues lie so that we can work together to resolve them and then to provide support through information and guidance, to help to drive a consistent message through industry.
And as the first schemes now approach their connection dates, one of the key topics that's been increasingly coming up in our engagement is around registration codes. What they are, why they're important, how many are needed, who issues them and who to, and how to go about getting replacement or additional codes if they're needed. So I'm going to go through all of these questions on the following slides, which will then be available on PDP’s website, so you can refer to the information after the session.
So starting with what are registration codes, which Paul has already covered a little bit. OK, so registration codes are unique codes which are provided to a scheme by their relevant regulator. And as Paul's shown, the codes enable a scheme to register and connect the relevant sections of their scheme to the dashboards ecosystem.
Now the key thing here is that registration codes act as a really important safety measure to ensure that only those schemes that should be connecting to the dashboards ecosystem are connecting to the ecosystem. So when a code is passed from a scheme to the organization connecting them, it effectively acts as a proxy. So to the next slide, how many codes are needed?
This is one of the questions that frequently comes up in our engagement and the simple answer is that one code is needed for each endpoint connection. I kind of think of it as a key that's opening a door that allows a particular person through. Once that door is open, that person can continue to walk through it. So let's take a simple example. A scheme with a single section connecting through a single endpoint or ISP. That scheme will need one registration code. And another example, let's take a hybrid scheme with DB and DC sections that are managed by different administrators. If those administrators are using different ISPs, then each ISP will need a unique registration code to register the section they're connecting. However, if both administrators are using the same ISP, then only one registration code is needed to connect the different sections of the scheme. That door, the ISP door, is then open.
And then of course where a scheme with multiple sections may be connecting through more than two ISPs and AVC's may well be a consideration to think about here. Then in those situations, a scheme could well need to request additional registration codes. So let's move on to how the codes are provided to schemes. This is split into 2 slides actually.
The first covers TPR registration codes and then I'm going to pass over to Julie, who's going to run through the process to follow for FCA registration codes. So as you'll no doubt be aware already, TPR has a nudge communications programme in place where we write to all occupational trust-based schemes in scope for dashboards a number of times ahead of their connection. We send these communications to the ‘Pensions Dashboards Primary Contact’ as recorded in Exchange. Now this contact must be a trustee and that's important, so that we write to the person that's on the hook for the duty, so to speak.
We share really useful information in these communications in terms of supporting schemes on their journey to compliance. And it's within these communications that we will share the unique registration codes with the scheme. It's worth saying here that while we routinely also send a copy of these communications to a schemes nominated contacts for dashboards, we will not include the code itself in those copy communications, as I said previously, this is an important security measure. So, we will send 2 unique codes to the pension to the primary dashboards contact around 5 months ahead of their ‘connect by’ date with instructions on how to use it.
Schemes are responsible for sharing these codes with their relevant ISP, and as I previously said, ISPs need the codes to register the schemes with MaPS (Money and Pensions Service) in order to then connect the scheme to the digital architecture. And to stress here, schemes should not pass the code directly to PDP, but to their ISP either directly or through their administrator. It's the endpoint connector, the ISP, that will need the code to register and connect the scheme and I don't apologise for saying that about 3 or 4 times. And now I'm just going to pass over to Julie for the FCA process.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Thank you.
Thank you, Angela.
So the FCA, as I said, unfortunately aren't able to join us today, but have produced this slide. I'm literally going to talk you through it, but please do ask any questions in the chat if you feel that they don't answer. So how to get an FCA registration code firms in scope of the FCA COBS 19.11 pension, dashboards, rules must apply to the FCA for their registration code. Any employee of the firm can complete and submit the application form, but the codes will only be issued to the person who holds the Senior Manager Function of Compliance Oversight, commonly referred to as an SMF 16. For first time applicants, the FCA will issue 2 registration codes as a matter of course, unless you request more than 2 codes at the outset. Where a firm needs only one code, it need only use one of the codes provided. You can request more than 2 codes in the application form if you are connecting via more than 2 third-party connection providers.
After you submit your application form, the FCA will contact you within 2 working days to either issue the codes or tell you if there are errors or omissions in your application form. And as I say, the FCA, our colleagues are sorry to not join us today, but they really would welcome any feedback. To what has been said today and are very happy to support you if you have any queries.
I'm now going to pass back to Angela.
Angela Bell
Brilliant. Thanks Julie. OK. So on to expiration dates. Now this is another area where we get questions and one of them is why do the codes actually expire? And the answer to that is simply that this is a really important part of the security feature of the codes to ensure that only obligated entities are able to connect to the ecosystem.
Now, as the slide says, TPR codes will expire shortly after schemes ‘connect by’ date. Once connected, the code is no longer needed. However, we do acknowledge that for those schemes connecting in the first few months, we need to ensure flexibility and so we therefore extended the expiry date for those schemes so that the codes remain valid for 3 months after a scheme’s ‘connect by’ date and FCA codes will expire 30 days after being used [sic – should be 'issued']. So moving on now to what to do if a scheme needs to either request additional or replacement codes. For example, what if your scheme needs more than 2 registration codes? What if a code has expired at the point that your scheme needs to register? And what if the original registration codes can't be found?
Well, the process to follow for a new or a replacement TPR registration code would be to contact TPR’s customer support team. A new or replacement code will then be sent to the scheme's Primary Dashboards Contact as recorded in Exchange.
So a couple of things to highlight here. The primary dashboard contacts needs to be a named contact and it needs to be a trustee. We have noticed that some of the email addresses provided are generic email addresses and this can mean that important information like the registration codes can get lost.
So please do ensure that the Primary Dashboard Contact email address is the email address of the Primary Dashboards Contact. And before calling our customer support team to request replacement codes where you can't locate them. Please do check on exchange to see where the code has in fact been sent so that you can ensure you're talking to the right person at the scheme. Another point to highlight here is if a scheme has decided to change their connect by date (having of course had regard to the guidance) and they have agreed this with their ISP to ensure that they can accommodate the change, then there is a process you can follow where you notify PDP of your new target ‘connect by’ date.
Now this is important as TPR can then adjust the scheme's communication journey accordingly to align with the new date and then issue the registration codes at the right time. And for additional or replacement FCA codes, as the slide says, you can use the FCA registration code application form. And then moving on to the last slide that I have, I've included some useful links for reference so that you've got all of those things in one place
Now I hope that was helpful and I do hope that it answered many of your registration code related questions. And with that, I shall pass back to Julie.
Julie Anderson-Hill
You so much, Angela, that really, really interesting and informative as always. And I'm sure many of us will be revisiting this recording to be able to find out and because you've said or shared a lot of insightful information there.
So, we've now got the opportunity for some questions and answers. I'm just going to look to see where the latest and we shall.
So I've got a first one from [attendee]. “Guidance suggests PDP only want to receive” this to you, Angela. “Guidance suggests PDP only want to receive requests for moving connection dates if the move is more than one month before or after the original connection date.” Please can you confirm?
Angela Bell
That’s a PDP process and schemes can, if they are going to change their target ’connect by’ date, obviously talk to those that are supporting you to make sure that they can accommodate the change and then the scheme can notify PDP and the regulators of that new date so that we can align the communications journey with that new date. The PDP process does say 30 days either side of the ’connect by’ date. Now that kind of makes sense, because if you're connecting within a month or a month previously, we don't want to create a cottage industry of change of connect by date notifications. We have also said in the in some of the communications that we would be sending out to the first schemes to connect that we don't expect a scheme to complete that notification if they intend to connect by July.
Because, you know, we don't want to be creating a lot of unnecessary work if we don't need to. But say your scheme is due to connect in July. Let's take July as an example. And isn't able to connect until September because that's more than 30 days off your ’connect by’ date in guidance, you can use that notification to let PDP and the regulators know and then we can change the communications journey to align with that, so we’re not sending you the registration codes at the wrong time.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Thank you, Angela.
OK. And the next one that we have is from [attendee].
“If we are in the situation where one of our ISPs cannot connect yet, should another ISP connect as normal?”
Angela Bell
So where a scheme or provider is unable to connect all sections at the same time, which is obviously our expectation, it's expected that efforts are made to connect any remaining sections at the earliest opportunity. Now both regulators have said that they will take a pragmatic approach, taking into account the potential impact on members. I think the best place for me to signpost you to in this case is actually our breach of law. We've got some really specific examples in there about connecting different parts of the scheme, particularly AVC providers. For example, at different times. And so if you follow, if you consider our breach of law guidance and consider whether you need to report a breach to ask with relevant remedial activities we weren't normally consider that breach to be materially significant if prompt and effective action is taken to connect the rest of the sections by the connection deadline, which is obviously 30 October 2026. So go and have a look at that guidance, it does have dashboards specific example to help you to decide whether or not to report a breach to us.
Chris Curry
If I could just add to that as well that there is a slightly different process for the FCA isn’t there. There is a modification by consent process that they would ask people to consider as well as doing that.
So the answer might depend slightly as to which regulatory sector you're in. But yes, I think the main point is that the regulators will take a pragmatic approach and the most important deadline is that 31 October 2026.
Angela Bell
And I think to be clear, actually that that where an ISP can't connect because they may not have completed the acceptance testing process, there will be no regulatory interventions where schemes will providers miss their connect by dates solely because of that of that reason.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Thank you. Thank you both. Really helpful. And another one that's come in from [attendee] that's kind of linked to this area, a specific question around ”Aligning the connection of all external AVCs to their main scheme connection date will be very difficult for many while I accept the regulator will be understandable. Is it really worth everyone's time and effort for these to be reported as a breach as the regulations require? Particularly while we're we are prior to regulatory October, the 26th deadline and DAP [dashboards available point].”
Angela Bell OK, so you know we do expect all parts of the scheme to connect at the same time. It's really important that savers do see all of all of their benefits together and that obviously includes schemes that have multiple sections or members with additional voluntary contributions. And I refer you to the breach of law again. You know, it's really important that schemes consider this. It's a scheme specific question. Consider the options. Make sure you understand how you are connecting and importantly make sure you have the right governance around your decisions and audit trails so that you are able to document this should you need to.
Julie Anderson-Hill And I think you've already asked answered this one by nature of what you've just said, Angela. But I'll read it out on behalf of [attendee].
“Not only are our AVC illustration dates not aligned, we have the main scheme benefits for active and deferred members illustration calculated.”
Angela Bell
Yes. Again, I seem to be referring a lot to the breach of law. We do actually have a specific example in our breach of law guidance and for a number of different dashboard scenarios. And one of them is around illustration dates.
I mean we do also acknowledge that, you know, it can be really challenging for schemes to meet all of their legislative duties at the point that they connect. And we understand that they may need to prioritise some elements. And we see different illustration dates across different benefits as something savers are already receiving that at the moment and we're going to be led by user testing to ensure that, you know, is there any saver harm with that. What we would expect is for an improvement plan to be in place.
So again, you know ensure you've got the right governance in place, ensure you've got the right audit trails in order to document your decisions.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Thank you. And keeping on this theme, I'm afraid, Ange.
“Guidance suggests that you only want to receive requests for moving connection dates if the move is more than one month before or after the original connection date. Please can you confirm if this is a correct understanding?”
Angela Bell
That's correct. I think that was the first question I answered.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Lovely. Thank you. OK. I'm trying to divide it up so I'm trying to find ones for Chris in particular. There's lot around AVC's and there's one from [attendee] here. “What we are unclear on is that once we've successfully connected to the MaPS pension dashboard in April via our ISP, will we need to apply for a further FCA connection code in January 26 ready for our ISP to stage our smaller schemes? Or will the fact that we have already connected overall to the MaPS pension dashboard in April 25 means no further FCA registration codes will be required? That's from [attendee].
Chris Curry
So I think just a, just a clarification. I think the connection will be to the ecosystem rather to the than to the dashboard. But, and again, it would depend on the precise details. But if there are multiple schemes that need to be connected, then my understanding is that each of those will have their own separate registration code. So you will still need to contact the FCA and go through the same process again for each of those separate schemes. If they have different ’connect by’ dates then they will be separate. So you'll need a separate registration code for each of those. Angela, I think that's right. From my understanding of the FCA, I know you're not the FCA, but you may have a similar or different view.
Angela Bell
Yes, actually I'm uncertain on that. I think that's that's one to go to the FCA because obviously each each registration code for the FCA is from a firm perspective. So if that firm is using, you know a single ISP, once that door is open, the door is then open. But as I say, the FCA rules may well be slightly different.
Chris Curry
Yeah, but perhaps that's what we should take back to the FCA, yeah.
Angela Bell
So that's one to take away, I think.
Julie Anderson-Hill
OK. Thank you. And [attendee] is asking:
“Are unique registration codes shared via secure method from the regulator to the scheme trustee. And is there guidance for trustees with sharing onwards to the ISP providers to ensure it remains secure?”
Angela Bell
OK. So I probably need to take that one away to our comms team. I think those emails that go to the chair of trustees with those unique registration codes may well be encrypted. But I need to triple check that because I'm not 100% sure of that, but yes, in the email that the chair of trustees or the Primary Dashboard Contact will receive, there are instructions on what to do with the registration code. And in fact, a copy of that email does go to the nominated contacts that the scheme has nominated. That's those who are supporting them with connection. And while the code isn't in those copy emails, the instructions around how to use it are.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Thank you. And there's one here from [attendee] asking:
“When do we think that the recording will be available on TPR's website?”
Angela Bell
We won't be including a link to this webinar on our website. I think it will go on PDP’s website. Is that right, Julie?
Julie Anderson-Hill
Correct. That's correct. Yeah, as Amanda popped in the chat. The recording will be available in due course after the event.
[Attendee] is asking:
“Where a single private pensions scheme and our scheme is also used for occupational auto enrolment pension. Would we require one registration code from the FCA?” Should do we take that one away or?
Angela Bell
Yeah. I might have to take it away.
I think the permission to connect the proxy to connect an occupational trust-based scheme. You may need 2 separate codes. It depends on how that scheme is made-up. I'm happy for you to email me that question after this session and I can take it away and answer it.
Chris Curry
Yeah. And I think just to reiterate that we will produce a question that answer document at the end of this where we will put the answers to all the questions, including the ones we've answered, but also some of the ones we haven't got round to answering as well. So there will be some answers coming to all the questions that are being asked.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Absolutely. And there's some around user testing and I just didn't know whether, Chris, you wanted to update again, reiterate what you've already told the audience around our preliminary steps on user testing.
Chris Curry
Yeah, very, very happy to do that.
So and there was a couple there. So I can see one about will there be industry testing access? I presume that means from the industry to help with the testing and definitely the MoneyHelper dashboard team and ourselves on the program are looking to take a collaborative approach as we go through that.
As I mentioned, the first phase will start in the summer, will be lower level and then kind of a more unmoderated, larger scale testing towards the second part of the year.
As we go forward and we're definitely looking to work very closely with industry in terms of getting schemes involved, but also sharing the findings that we're doing at each stage to make sure that the learnings are then are then shared across the industry because obviously although we’re testing to try and improve the MoneyHelper dashboard, we're also testing to try and help the industry understand what people's reactions are likely to be when they see their information on a pensions dashboard and to help the industry get ready for what will come beyond pensions dashboards and to get to make sure they've got all their, their other engagement services and all their administration in order for when that happens.
I think there was also a question about whether people from industry could get involved in testing personally as well as testing with members of the public, and I think there are some plans to do some of that as well because we want to make sure, for example, that we've got people who understand whether the information that's coming through is accurate or whether it's the right information.
That's an important part of the testing that we're doing as well. So I think all of those are going to be important parts of what we're doing from the summer onwards this year.
Julie Anderson-Hill
Thank you, Chris.
And just to highlight the message [attendee] put into the chat, congratulation the progress so far for PDP, TPR, FCA, DWP and GDS, MoneyHelper and industry teams.
Exactly 5 years ago this month.
So thank you for acknowledging that [attendee]. And yes, we continue the good work, you know, this is just the beginning.
So there are a number of other questions and as Chris has said, we will be taking all of the questions away from today.
We will be we anticipated this taking about 45 minutes and I think we're roughly spot on. So for the questions that we haven't been able to answer today or have the time to come back to you today, we will take them all away. The recording will be available on the PDP website and we will be publishing the answers to the questions there.
So that just leaves me to thank everybody for attending today. I hope you found extremely helpful. Please do keep in touch. We have various methods. As Chris touched on, we've got the email support, the website, Twitter and the usual social media requests, so thanks again. It's been a pleasure.
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- Pensions Dashboards Programme
Published: 03 April 2025
Last updated: 04 April 2025