The secretary of state for work and pensions has approved standards for pensions dashboards, the Pensions Dashboards Programme has said. Elsewhere, three of 19 organisations volunteering to test the system are now fully connected to the dashboards architecture. 

Technical, reporting and data standards, along with a code of connection, were created by PDP but have been in draft form as long as they remained unapproved. On Wednesday afternoon, the PDP said that the secretary of state for work and pensions, Liz Kendall, has now approved dashboards standards, as required by dashboards regulations.  

 

The Money and Pensions Service will still be able to amend the standards without approval if it deems them to be only minor technical tweaks, but bigger changes again need government to give the green light. They are expected to come with several months' lead-in time and some form of consultation.  

The formal approval means schemes and providers now have to adhere to the PDP standards, rather than just being encouraged to work towards them.   

“Formal making of the initial version of... PDP standards enables data providers to move forward with a degree of certainty,” said independent consultant Richard Smith. “But, of course, standards will continually iterate in light of live user testing, starting with the Moneyhelper dashboard from the summer of 2025.” 

 
PDP sits within the Money and Pensions Service, the quango behind government guidance website Moneyhelper. MaPS is creating its own publicly run dashboard, intended to exist alongside private sector offers, with the aim to provide a dashboard to people that do not already use a financial app.

Design standards for private sector dashboards were consulted on in late 2022 but are not being progressed at the moment because of connection work that is currently underway. They will only be picked up again after user testing due this summer, which is expected to inform the design requirements further.  

PDP has been plagued by delays, leading to a formal ‘reset’ in 2023. But the continuing lack of a go-live date for either the MaPS-run dashboard or private sector dashboards means providers warned MPs on Wednesday that firms miight have to stop their work on commercial dashboards.  

   

   

Representatives of PDP gave evidence during the same Work and Pensions Committee hearing. Senior responsible owner at PDP, Iain Patterson, said it was “fair to say” that uncertainty on timelines and standards has hampered private providers.  

“I do understand why people are nervous about the commercial dashboards piece, but we’re only going through discovery at the moment,” he said. “We’ll have to build, I think, trust and certainty if we go forward, but there is absolutely a commitment... that we are going to go down that route.” 

PDP also revealed that three organisations have now completed end to end connection to the dashboards architecture. They are among 19 volunteer participants, which include large organisations and so-called integrated service providers - third parties that provide an interface for pension providers - together representing 90% of the pensions population. 

“The vast amount will be connected, and we’re highly confident of their connection pace. We're actually accelerating, through the lessons [learnt] around how to connect people in a better, more confident way as well,” Patterson told MPs on Wednesday. 

Asked if the 31 October 2026 deadline can be met, he replied: “It's very much test and learn at that stage but we are very confident we’ll hit the dates.”