Pensions Dashboards: a smarter solution

Meeting and exceeding the Pensions Dashboards requirements
Requirements Our Solution What to ask your administrator

Daunted by dashboards

For many schemes, getting Pensions Dashboard ready will be a big job. Underlying data quality can be an issue and generating accurate Estimated Retirement Incomes (ERIs) for defined benefits (DB) is proving very difficult for many schemes.

Not however at Spence. We believe that we have all the major problems cracked and at no additional cost to clients, unlike other third party administrators.

Requirements

Pensions Dashboards were given the green light by the Pension Schemes Act 2021, which introduced the framework, with details to be set out in Regulations. These have now been published and the Department of Work and Pensions is currently considering feedback on its proposals. With most of the detail now in place, we can expect Pensions Dashboards to start onboarding schemes from 2023. Find out more https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk

In line with the staging timetable, all qualifying UK schemes will need to connect to the Pensions Dashboards infrastructure. This will allow them to respond to “Find Messages” and return information on the scheme and member’s benefits, chief of these being an Estimated Retirement Income (ERI) at NRD.

The Find Message will include a number of unique identifiers, which can be used to establish a match with a member. A return message must be sent even if there is no match. Where there is a match the scheme must return a set of information about the scheme and the member’s benefits in real time.

Where there is a match, the scheme also needs to return an ERI. A pre-calculated value can be used as long as it’s no more than 12 months old. In the absence of this, a value must be returned to the Dashboard within 3 days for DC and 10 days for DB.

To meet these requirements in full needs:

  • Digitised records, nothing on paper or microfiche.
  • Data good enough to run an ERI calculation.
  • A system capable of generating the ERIs.
  • A system capable of meeting the demanding security standards required before connecting to the Dashboards Infrastructure.

Our Solution

All member records are cloud hosted on Mantle®, our market leading administration and actuarial solution. This means we can easily search records for potential matches.

Mantle automates 100% of benefit calculations and automatically generates ERIs for DC and DB in advance of any find request. Where the underlying data isn’t good enough, Mantle won’t be able to generate an ERI. There is, however, an automated process to handle this.


On receipt of a find request, where there is a pre-calculated value, a notification is automatically sent to the administrator. Once the data issue is resolved, Mantle automatically generates the ERI and returns it to the Dashboards.

Watch the movie to see how this works

To connect to the Dashboards infrastructure we are working with Equisoft a leading Integrated Service Provider (ISP). They will host all our data and respond to requests from Dashboards.

There will be no charge to our clients for connection and no ongoing charges; it’s just part of what we do.

What to ask your administrator

If you are concerned about your administrator's capability to meet the Dashboards requirements there are some key questions to ask.

  • Is the data accessible online for find messages? Is it good enough to be able to generate ERIs in advance of receiving a find message. If not, what are the plans to fix it? In bulk or “on the fly”, as requests are received. If on demand, how is the administrator resourcing for this?
  • How will ERIs be calculated, on the administration platform or on another system? Is the plan to pre-calculate and store these values, or generate them as required? Remember: you have 3 days to calculate a DC value and 10 for DB.
  • Will the administrator be connecting directly to the Dashboards infrastructure or using an ISP? If the latter, are they on track to be ready for your staging date? 
  • Does the administrator have a time and action specific plan to ensure your scheme complies. If not, when will they?
  • What are the connection costs and are there any ongoing costs?

Daunted by Dashboards?

There’s no need to be daunted about Dashboards. If you want to know how your scheme can attach to the Dashboards without the stress, contact Graeme Riddoch. We’ll be happy to discuss any aspects of our system and show you how a smarter solution can work for your scheme.

    • Find out more about how Dashboards will work and what trustees need to do to meet the Pensions Dashboards requirements.
    • Read our blogs on Pensions Dashboards.
    • Watch our 90 second video which summarises our smarter Dashboards solution.