The majority of pensions schemes (60 per cent) are wating for further legislation and regulation to enable them to become ready for dashboards, a survey conducted by Sackers has revealed.

The survey, which was conducted during a recent webinar, found that most schemes were still “waiting for the pieces to start slotting properly into place” so they can understand “exactly what is needed”.

The survey also discovered that over 50 per cent of schemes have already chosen how they will connect to the dashboard’s architecture and completed a “significant” amount of data work with the rest various stages of connectivity.

Sackers also detailed how schemes planned to connect to dashboards, with 50 per cent of those survey deciding to use their existing third-party administrator’s connection method.

A third (33 per cent) were yet to decide on how they will connect to dashboards.

Connection was not the biggest challenge for schemes however, as Sackers found that 40 per cent of respondents identified the provision of accurate defined benefit (DB) value data as the most challenging aspect, ahead of the 19 per cent of schemes that identified the member matching process as the biggest challenge.

Sackers associate director, Oliver Topping, commented: “Over the course of the next few years, several thousand pension schemes will have to connect, and remain connected, to the pensions dashboard ecosystem.

“Progress has been made across the industry in the last year, but as we can see from our survey, there are many challenges ahead.

Unsurprisingly, our survey shows that the majority of schemes (over 60 per cent) are waiting for the pieces to start slotting properly into place so they understand exactly what’s needed.”

“The dashboard timetable is an ambitious one and there is a lot for trustees to do. With The Pensions Regulator potentially able to levy fines of up to £50,000 for each dashboard breach, any non-compliance could prove costly.

“As a first step trustees should therefore check and confirm their staging date. Working backwards from that deadline, they should then put in place a detailed project plan for those overseeing and carrying out the work, also identifying where external input is needed (from actuaries, administrators or lawyers).

"Doing this should help trustees stay on track for connection.”

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