The pensions dashboard is to be launched before 2020, “without a shadow of a doubt”, Pensions Minister Guy Opperman has confirmed.

Speaking at a Work and Pensions Committee meeting today, 15 November 2017, the Under Secretary of State for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, told Work and Pensions Committee chair Frank Field that “we’ll see it [the dashboard] very soon and before 2020 without any shadow of a doubt”.

“The objective is to aim for May 2019,” Opperman explained.

Nonetheless, the sceptical chair probed Opperman as to whether the dashboard would be delivered in either of their lifetimes and also questioned: “Aren’t we going after the end of the rainbow on this?”.

Opperman replied: “No this is the future. The accessibility of pension pots online, the greater ability to trace, to access. The evidence shows that this is very much the way ahead, on a multitude of levels, this is the right way forward. We are passionately committed to providing this … and I would like to say we will have it up and running a lot sooner than your or my lifetime has ended.”

Looking at the near future the Minister outlined the government’s plans for the continued development of the project. Opperman noted that the DWP has taken the ABI report on board as a “founding base” and will be delivering its feasibility study in approximately 12 weeks.

The DWP is also holding a number of stakeholder events, including one in London on 11 December. “We urge industry members to come along,” he said, followed by the consideration of the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s advice.

Opperman noted that the final area that the DWP will be considering is “international experience”. He explained that the department would look at examples in Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia to look at what they’ve done, similarities and what the UK can learn from them.

“All of that I hope, produces a result, whereby you ask for a specific date when we will make all those decisions and outline what our plans are. That in March of next year, myself and the Secretary of State need to make those decisions on the final half a dozen issues. Those sources of evidence will be taken on board,” the Minister said.

Furthermore, Opperman was probed by Committee members on the provision of data to the dashboard, a significant area that has been continually considered by the industry since the dashboard’s introduction. To this, the Minister also referred to the Swedish method which involved all parties being invested to provide data to the dashboard, and threatened with legislation if they didn’t.

While Opperman explained that the Swedish method was “pretty effective”, it did take place over a longer period of time, as there wasn’t the requirement to “pass legislation to this house and that house…[as in the UK], which can delay matters”.

“For dashboard to work, the maximum amount of data needs to be on it. There is no doubt that all parts of the industry know that dashboard is something we intend to do and the only way that it works is that the data is available, whether it is govt or individual providers, they are all attempting to get their data in an accessible format,” Opperman concluded.

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