Focus areas to October 2022
Central digital architecture integration and testing
The programme will continue to work with its suppliers on testing and integrating the different elements of the central technical architecture throughout the summer. Following the connection of the first dashboard and data provider, we will carry out testing to ensure that data can flow securely, throughout the system.
We will initially use synthetic data to carry out end-to-end testing, including security and penetration testing. Once the system is sufficiently robust, we will start to test using live pensions data, which represents individual’s real pensions savings.
We will connect the remaining (alpha) data and dashboard providers to the ecosystem as part of scaling up the testing. A second volunteer tranche of providers and schemes will connect early to the ecosystem, as work on refining the onboarding systems and processes continues in Autumn 2022.
As we learn more from the technical development of the digital architecture, we’ll communicate our progress to industry, to ensure we’re continuing to provide effective support to organisations preparing to connect to dashboards.
Standards development and consultation
DWP plans to publish its response to the consultation on the Regulations for pensions dashboards in the summer, following which, it will lay the Regulations as soon as parliamentary time allows. This will provide the Money and Pensions Service with the authority to set the standards for pensions dashboards.
PDP will continue its work on the data, technical, reporting and design standards relating to pensions dashboards, as well as the code of connection. We will carry out a consultation on these standards during the summer of 2022.
Industry readiness
We are working to refine the onboarding process during our test phases, testing connectivity and compatibility of the digital architecture with the pension providers and schemes that have elected to onboard early. This work will help us ensure we have a robust process in place, once we reach the point of compulsory staging from April 2023.
The DWP consultation included indicative staging dates, plus further information on the duties that the Regulations will lay on pensions schemes. Together with the January 2022 publications on standards, this provides industry with a further depth of information relating to pensions dashboards.
We continue to regularly update our data providers information hub, which draws together the information that pensions providers, schemes and ISPs need in order to prepare to connect to pensions dashboards.
