The ambition of the government’s much-vaunted pensions dashboard has nearly been realised, but after a decade in the making, the real problems are likely still to come. 

It was back in 2014 when the Financial Conduct Authority vocalised its notion of enabling consumers to see all their pension savings in one place. 

With the Retail Distribution Review in its infancy, it seemed a logical step on the path of transparency to provide a place where everyone with pension savings could see who they had a pension account with, how much was in it, and what their state pension would look like too.

But fast-forward to 2025, in which time a National Audit Office report has lambasted the dashboard scheme for a rise in costs of nearly a quarter, from £235m in 2020 to £289m in 2023 – its aims seem not only less relevant but potentially problematic.

While knowledge is often power, there’s a risk that if consumers scrutinise the value of their pension investments too frequently, they could end up making decisions that do more harm than good. 

Unintended consequences

One of the biggest potential conflicts that the pensions dashboard could have in today’s world is with the regulator’s Consumer Duty legislation.

These rules, as advisers and product providers will know, are aimed at ensuring consumers get the best outcome, and that any advice or investment is fair and reasonable. 

But by providing individuals with unfettered oversight of their pension pots, it could tacitly encourage them to take greater risk, or to make decisions that many retail investors fall foul of, such as selling during market shocks. 

This effective rubber-stamping of DIY investing could mean a worse outcome for consumers and more complaints for the industry to deal with as individuals inevitably seek redress for mistakes they claim they weren’t qualified to make.

Essentially, there’s a risk that the pensions dashboard makes people focus on the wrong aspect of their savings, with the potential for losses to be elevated and for firms having to spend countless hours convincing clients not to make any rash decisions.

Alternative focus 

The government dogma suggests the pensions dashboard is coming whether we like it or not, but to minimise potentially negative impacts, ministers should ensure they put as much effort into other areas of pensions. 

While the UK now has auto-enrolment, which means more people are saving into a pension scheme than ever before, there is still arguably an education gap. 

Many paying into a workplace pension, for instance, might not know that they can increase their contributions beyond the standard limit set by their firm, or that they can change their risk profile, or request contributions from their employer are paid into their own personal pension. 

Product providers cannot explicitly encourage individuals to save more, and so any such initiatives would need to be spearheaded by policymakers.

Furthermore, it would also be wise for the government to incentivise people to save earlier on, and to help them gain a basic understanding of the aspects of pension saving they can control, such as costs.

Rival options 

The government’s pension dashboard delays also mean the private sector has filled the gap in many ways. 

Private-sector pension platforms have been steadily improving their own digital offerings – from online portals to mobile apps – to give customers a clearer view of their retirement savings. In some ways, the industry has been quietly creating its own mini-dashboards. 

For example, specialist self-invested personal pension small self-administered scheme operators have invested in data integration to allow clients and financial advisers to see various accounts in one place. 

Alltrust, among others, has even built direct data links with investment platforms and is primed for dashboard connectivity. 

This proactive approach means that by the time the official pensions dashboard finally arrives, many providers will have already solved parts of the puzzle it was trying to solve. 

Joined-up thinking

More broadly, the pensions dashboard is another example of a lack of holistic thinking by the government. 

Connecting to the pensions dashboard and maintaining the service will cost firms money, and this comes as companies are already having to grapple with the rising cost of employing people.

The hike in the amount of National Insurance companies have to pay for their workers is an unwelcome challenge, making any additional cost burdens – such as the pensions dashboard – even more onerous. 

A more savvy approach from Westminster could have been to encourage digital innovation in financial services, which could have expedited the creation of a dashboard system by the private sector. 

At present, the risk of developing bespoke technology is too great amid constant taxation and policy shifts, something that has led to the vast majority of the financial services industry relying on just three major technology providers.

Better support for innovation capital could have helped create exactly what the government is trying to achieve, but probably with far less taxpayers’ money.

That opportunity hasn’t entirely disappeared, given the desire by ministers for commercial pensions dashboards to exist alongside the government one, but it needs to be grasped sooner rather than later. 

And dovetailing this with campaigns aimed at encouraging consumers to save more, as well as broadening the number of providers that can offer workplace schemes within the auto-enrolment ecosystem, would be a major step forward.