Pension providers that fail to provide data for the pension dashboards could be fined up to £50,000 by The Pensions Regulator, according to the proposed legislation underpinning the project.

Part of the Pension Schemes Bill is devoted to the creation of a framework to support the dashboard project, including new rules to compel pension schemes to provide accurate information to consumers.

According to the 187-page document, published yesterday (October 16), the regulator will have powers to issue compliance notices and penalty notices to parties that don’t supply data to the project.

The watchdog will be able to fine businesses £50,000 and an individual up to £5,000 for non-compliance, the bill stated.

Pension dashboards will ensure people throughout the UK have easy access to information about their pensions, who manages them and what they are worth.

The department for Work and Pensions confirmed in December it will introduce multiple pension dashboards, with the first one being developed by the government’s guidance body, the Money and Pensions Service.

An industry delivery group brought together by the guidance body will set out a timetable for other fully operational dashboards, as well as setting standards and ensuring security across the portals. 

Romi Savova, chief executive of PensionBee and a member of the pension dashboard steering group, told FTAdviser that the new fines are fully in line with the existing maximum limits TPR can apply to schemes.

She said: “The compliance provisions make clear that sending data to dashboards is a serious and important obligation for pension schemes and provides all the more reason for schemes to get on top of their data cleansing and digitisation activities.”

Overall, Ms Savova welcomed the provisions on dashboards included in the bill, as they “make clear the authority of the Money and Pensions Service to proceed with delivering the product, offering the body substantial discretion in key aspects like data standards and the staging of data provision”.

Besides making data delivery from pension schemes to the dashboards mandatory, the document also includes provisions for the state pension data to be included.

However, Chris Curry, principal of the pensions dashboard industry delivery group, explained to FTAdviser the details of how this data will be presented haven’t been decided yet.

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