Following the announcement that the launch of the Pension Dashboard will experience further delays, Jaco Wasserfall argues that staggering its release could be beneficial.

On March 2nd, UK Pensions Minister Laura Trott announced that the implementation of the long-awaited Pension Dashboard would be delayed. This decision has caused a great deal of consternation among pension advisers and consultants. The program was first proposed in 2016, and it was originally planned to be launched in 2019. However, due to various delays and setbacks, the launch date has been pushed back multiple times.

On 15 March Chris Curry, principal of the Pension Dashboard said: “Delivering the central digital architecture for pensions dashboards is a complex undertaking. DWP and the Money and Pensions Service remain committed to dashboards. Significant progress has already been made. However, we need to do more work to ensure the connection journey is stable and secure for industry, and that it’s achievable ahead of mandatory connection.” He also stated, at a recent industry conference, that when the new staging dates were announced they would be absolutely final and therefore the industry should use this ‘gift’ of time wisely to ensure they are prepared.

Unsurprisingly the industry is now feeling somewhat at a loss as to what is going on, and how long it will take. The delay has become a bit of a recurring theme, with every attempt to introduce the dashboard resulting in a mad rush followed by another delay causing frustration and expense for the entire pensions industry.

The question must be asked whether the Pension Dashboard program has fallen into the mega projects trap? According to a study by Bent Flyvbjerg, a professor at the University of Oxford, 90% of mega projects experience cost overruns. A McKinsey study of 48 troubled megaprojects showed that poor execution was responsible for cost and time overruns in 73 percent of the cases.

Is it not time for the Dashboards Program to embrace a more agile and modular methodology? Can the process not be broken down into smaller projects that can be kept on track and executed according to plan?

Clarity is needed from the minister and the working group responsible for the program to get to an answer.

There is no doubt that pensions dashboard is a critical initiative that will enhance the industry and the appetite is certainly there so we must ask ourselves what can we do now.

We believe that PDP could take a more modular approach and focus all its resources on getting the MaPS dashboard fully operational and into members hands as soon as possible. The MaPS dashboard can then be used as a building block to connect the rest of the industry instead of the big bang approach being taken now. We concede that part of the Dashboard aim is to enable people access to all their information across the whole eco system, but having a dashboard where more information is continually added is better than having no dashboard. Not dissimilar to getting auto enrolment up and running with a lower contribution, or 5 fruit and vegetables a day instead of 7 – something is surely better than nothing…

Jaco Wasserfall, Founder and CEO, PensionSmith