September has been identified by some firms as the cut-off point by which the government must have published its feasibility study or the dashboard may not launch in time to meet its 2019 deadline.
Adrian Boulding, director of policy at workplace pension provider Now: Pensions, told FTAdviser that big insurance companies and pension funds set their budgets for the next year this month, and if they don’t get a clear steer from the government they won’t be able to include the project in their accounts.
He said: "At the moment, because we haven't had this feasibility study, nobody has been able to say to providers 'you will need to be able to do A, B and C for the pension dashboard [to come to reality] in 2019'.
"If we get to September, and we go through the month and we don't have a clear call from the government on what is needed, then it isn't going to launch in 2019, because the budgets will already have been set for the year."
The plan behind the pension dashboard, which is due to launch in 2019, is to create the technology to enable savers to see all of their retirement pots in one place at the same time, giving them a greater awareness of their assets and how to plan for their retirement.
It was originally proposed by former chancellor George Osborne but the government has said the industry should create it and responsibility for delivering the project has since moved to the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP).
According to media reports in July secretary of state Esther McVey has since moved to kill off the project, saying the service should not be provided by the state.
However, a DWP spokesperson said at the time the feasibility study, which was originally set to be published in March, was proceeding and that the report amounted to no more than "speculation and rumour".
Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, agrees with Mr Boulding about the perceived September deadline, adding the "continued government dithering and delays mean the 2019 deadline for building the pension dashboard is at risk".
Ms Smith pointed to two types of costs for providers: the cost of building and running a dashboard, and the cost of providing data to it.
She said: "The feasibility study should hopefully give the industry a clear steer about the scope and government expectations allowing the industry to set aside budget next year to build the service and cover the unknown cost of running the service, and also for providing data to dashboards.
"If this doesn’t happen soon we’ll lose another year."
Rachel Vahey, product technical manager at Nucleus, said firms would build in contingency budgets to cover unknown costs such as the dashboard's, but added it would be good to receive a clear indication on the government’s thoughts on the dashboard if firms were to meet the 2019 deadline.
In particular, she said companies needed to know how the government sees the dashboard working in practice, and what the implications are for firms, both in terms of development time, and cost of licenses and governance.
She said: "Firms will be signing off their business plans for 2019 over the next few weeks.
"As part of this firms will include contingency resource for regulation developments, such as the pensions dashboard. But a clear indication of the requirements and the timeline for the development of the pensions dashboard would help firms fully prepare for next year."
Peter Bradshaw, director of Selectapension, does not agree with these views, however.
He said: "Providers will know what is required to deliver a dashboard and probably don’t need a feasibility study to tell them.
"Big companies will have set aside contingency funds in their budgets to cater for this eventuality. If the government mandates the terms and timing for delivery of the dashboard, the providers will find the money."
Sir Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London and former pensions minister, has a more pessimistic view.
He said: "A meaningful dashboard needs to include state pension data.
"Even if the government were to agree immediately to go ahead with a dashboard, a lot of work would be needed to integrate the state pension information to the government’s satisfaction. For this reason, a 2019 deadline has been looking optimistic for a long time."
He added: "We also need a law to make it mandatory to supply data to the dashboard and that is unlikely to be passed much before the end of 2019/20. This is clearly going to be a slow process, though the sooner the uncertainty is ended, the better."
Mr Boulding said he believes the feasibility study is taking longer than expected "because as you get further in these projects, you discover that they are a bit more difficult and challenging than you initially thought they were going to be".
He added: "The difficult aspects the government has to sort out is consumer identity - how does the consumer properly identify themselves as they begin their dashboard session, so that the consumer looks at their pensions and not anybody else's.
"Adding to that, then it needs to identify third parties which ought to have access to this, such as a financial adviser, or a provider, which offers tools and guidance on their website.
"To do that, the government has to grapple again with more identity and permission issues. Both of those issues are proving a bit more difficult than the government had originally thought."
Mr Boulding also noted a recent petition urging the government to deliver the pension dashboard, which has been signed by more than 140,000 people, was pressuring the government to act.
He said: "It's a testament to the popularity of the dashboard, and I don't think the government can ignore this."
Mr Boulding said Now: Pensions remained fully committed to the project, and had said this to the government.
He said: "We still see the pension dashboard as a really important industry development as a customer utility. We think that it is one of those things that once we got it, people will question ‘how on earth’ they ever managed without it."
maria.espadinha@ft.com
