Pensions Regulator publishes new pensions dashboards compliance and enforcement policy

On September 4, 2024, the Regulator published the final version of its pensions dashboards compliance policy with a blog outlining its intentions in exercising its powers, titled "Act now on pensions dashboards so we don't have to".  

The policy confirms that the Regulator will focus on the behaviours or breaches it thinks pose the greatest risk to savers' abilities to receive a complete and accurate picture of their pensions. It confirms:  

• Schemes should ensure dashboard "connection compliance". Breaches may include not connecting by the connection deadline, being unable to demonstrate regard to the guidance on connection, and a scheme failing to fully connect or remain connected to dashboards in line with the regulations and Money and Pensions Service's standards.
• To demonstrate compliance with legislation and policy, schemes should keep clear audit trail information. This should show how they have been monitoring their progress and success, keeping a record of compliance as set out in MaPS' reporting standards and keeping a record of actions taken to resolve any issues, including their matching policy and the steps taken to improve their data.
• The Regulator will use multiple sources of evidence to monitor and identify the risk of non-compliance, including regular data from MaPS dashboards system. This will help it identify breaches and look at trends across the dashboards landscape. It may request additional information from schemes where it identifies concerns or where it is looking to identify best practice.

The policy goes into more detail on the Regulator's plans for supervision, and on how it will decide whether regulatory action is necessary. It also includes an appendix setting out various dashboard scenarios to show how the Regulator may use its powers in different situations.