Under current proposals, you will be expected to supply the following information to scheme members via pensions dashboards. This is referred to as ‘view data’ and broadly falls into the three categories below.
- Administrative data. This includes the scheme name, the dates the member was in it, the name and contact details for the administrator and, if available, the employer’s name. You will also need to provide a member’s date of birth to enable dashboards to show the time to retirement (the date of birth itself will not be shown on dashboards).
- Signpost data. These are hyperlinks to websites where the member can see other useful information about the scheme, such as information on costs and charges, the scheme’s statement of investment principles and the scheme’s implementation statement.
- Value data. This provides details of how much pension the member has built up already and how much they may have when they retire. Further detail on this is set out below. You will also need to provide certain ‘contextual’ information to be displayed with value data.
You can find the complete list of view data in the Pensions Dashboards Programme’s (PDP) data standards.
The current proposal is that you should return administrative and signpost data immediately after a view request is received.
For new members, you will need to provide the administrative data as soon as you can and no later than three months after the member joined the scheme. A new member’s value data must also be provided as soon as you can, and no later than when you first produce a statement for them, or 12 months from the end of the first full scheme year they have been in the scheme, whichever is soonest.
You must provide value data immediately if it is based on a statement provided to a member in the last 13 months, or a calculation made for the member in the last 12 months, for example if there was a previous request made on a dashboard. Where this is not the case, you will have three working days to return value data where all benefits provided to the member are defined contribution (DC) benefits and 10 working days in all other cases, such as defined benefits (DB) and hybrid benefits, where the value is calculated by reference to both DB and DC elements.
Value data
The values that you need to supply will depend on the status of the member and the benefit type.
| Benefit / member type | Accrued value | Projected value | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pot | Annual income | Pot | Annual income | |
| DC |
Yes | Yes | If held | Yes |
| Active DB including public service | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Deferred DB including public service | No | Yes | No | No |
| Active cash balance | Yes | Yes — unless the sole purpose is to provide a lump sum to members | Yes | Yes — unless the sole purpose is to provide a lump sum to members |
| Deferred cash balance | Yes | Yes — unless the sole purpose is to provide a lump sum to members | No | No |
| Active collective DC |
Yes | Yes | ||
| Deferred collective DC |
Yes | |||
| Hybrid benefit | Where the benefit is calculated by reference to both DB and DC elements, you will only need to return one set of values, which may be DB or DC depending on which you consider best represents the members’ benefit. | |||
You will also need to provide certain ‘contextual’ information to help members make sense of the value information — for example whether the benefits would increase in payment, or whether there are a spouse’s or civil partner’s benefits attached to the pension. You can find out further detail on contextual information in the draft regulations and on the PDP’s website.
Preparing value data
You need to ensure that the values you provide are accurate, calculated in line with the legal requirements and sufficiently recent. You also need to ensure this data is digitised so it can be returned through the system. You should audit your data and put a plan in place to improve data and make any changes required to your systems and processes.
Whether they are DC or DB, the values you give should not be older than those provided on a benefit statement in the last 13 months or from a calculation made for the member in the last 12 months. You will need to consider how you ensure that data returned to members is recent. If you don’t have up-to-date information available, you need to decide how you will provide this. You will only have three working days where all benefits provided to the member are DC or 10 working days in any other case to calculate a value on request. Therefore, it may be more efficient to put in place a process to revalue deferred pensions annually or automate the calculation of values in your administration system. Speak to your administrator and other advisers or suppliers to decide how you will deliver recent data.
DC values
DC projected values should be calculated in line with the Financial Reporting Council actuarial standards (known as AS TM1). DC accrued annual income should also be calculated by reference to AS TM1, but leaving out the impact of future contributions and fund growth. Values calculated by reference to AS TM1 will only be required once planned changes to these standards come into force, which is expected to be October 2023 (you will need to provide DC accrued pot value information from the outset).
You do not have to provide a projected value if the member is within two years of retirement or where:
- the accrued value (to money purchase benefits) was less than £5,000 when last calculated and provided to the member, and
- no contributions (including transfers and pension credits) have been made since, and
- the scheme has informed the member that further projections will not be given unless further contributions are made
You can still provide a projected value in these situations if you choose to.
DB values
You should calculate DB values in line with scheme rules, without taking into account possible increases in earnings.
However, for the first two years of being connected, you can provide a simplified calculation of deferred benefits revalued using an adjustment method you consider to be appropriate (eg using inflation figures). You can only do this if providing a value in line with scheme rules would be disproportionately expensive or take too long, and you are confident the alternative value provided would not be misleading. During these two years you should deliver the data and system improvements required to be able to provide a value in line with scheme rules.
If the member’s DB benefits have different tranches, you can choose to either provide one single value (showing a common retirement date) or separate values for each tranche (with their own retirement date).
Public service values
Public service schemes, excluding judiciary and local government schemes, will need to provide two sets of values which reflect the McCloud remediation process — one for each option they can select at retirement.
Public service schemes will only need to provide value data from 1 April 2025, or once a Remedial Service Statement has been issued (if applicable), whichever comes first.
Schemes in PPF assessment and schemes in wind-up
If your scheme, or a section of your scheme, goes into PPF assessment after you’ve connected to the system, you will need to remain connected, but you must not provide value information to your members (or members of the relevant section). Instead, you must provide messaging confirming that the scheme, or section, is in PPF assessment.
Schemes in the process of winding up will need to connect to the system, but do not have to provide value information to members (though they can do so voluntarily).