Pensions Dashboards are designed to let you view all your various pension pots in one place – including the government pension, workplace pensions and any private pensions. At the moment, you have to look at these pots separately, which can make it difficult to keep track.

The Government’s objective was originally for the service to be available to consumers by 2019. However, Brexit means proposals could be delayed beyond 2019, but state pension information will be included ‘as soon as possible’.

Private sector providers will be allowed to offer Dashboards in the initial testing phase and the DWP envisages the majority of schemes will provide information to Dashboards within 3-4 years.

Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, said: “Introducing Pensions Dashboards has clearly been shunted down the priority list as the vice-like grip of Brexit on Parliament grows ever tighter.

“In the current political climate there is no guarantee the Pensions Bill needed to compel schemes to provide data to Pensions Dashboards will see the light of day in 2019. However, the fact the policy has attracted cross-party support suggests it is likely to become reality eventually – we just don’t know who will introduce it or when.

Significant step

“Nonetheless, Dashboards represent a potentially significant positive step forward, both in terms of uniting people with lost pensions and boosting engagement over the longer-term. Over time Dashboards could potentially expand to include other savings vehicles and financial products, effectively allowing people to see all of their finances in one secure place.”

Peter Bradshaw, director for Selectapension agreed that a pension dashboard was a great way of engaging people with their pension planning: “To make it work, the Government would need a huge public awareness campaign. Ease of access for users and data security are essential to avoid hacking and scammers.

“Multiple dashboards could introduce confusion and will be developed for purely commercial reasons. There is also a risk that dashboard providers stray from making ‘recommendations’ to providing advice without knowing users’ full circumstances.”