“Amidst the flurry of legislation published at the end last week, the DWP’s draft amendments to the pension dashboard regulations crept under the radar. As part of the pension dashboard programme reset, these remove the legislative timetable which set out the dates for schemes to connect to the pension dashboard ecosystem, but now include the drop-dead connection deadline of 31 October 2026. Instead, a revised staging timetable will be set out in guidance, hopefully published sometime later this year. The connection guidance will indicate, but not mandate, when schemes, by size and type, are scheduled to connect.
“There were fears that the removal of legislative connection dates and the introduction of a single deadline date would lead to many schemes leaving it until the last minute to connect to the dashboard ecosystem causing a logjam. The Pensions Regulator is attempting to outmanoeuvre this risk by updating its draft guidance making it clear that schemes will need to demonstrate how they ‘had regard’ to the connection guidance with the threat of fines for non-compliance.
"We expect that the largest pension schemes will follow the guidance, but that may not be the case for smaller schemes, which tend to be much less-well resourced. To move forward, it’s important that the connection guidance is published as soon as possible so that schemes have something to aim for. Dealing with unknown timelines leads to uncertainty and planning blight.“
Pensions Dashboards (Amendment) Regulations 2023 - Failing to comply with pensions dashboards duties | The Pensions Regulator
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