Responding to the Department for Work and Pensions' latest consultation, Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, said: "It’s vital that the information shown on simpler annual benefit statements is consistent with that shown on pension dashboards.
"A lack of alignment will be confusing, defeating the purpose of trying to improve engagement. To avoid this, these two initiatives should be joined up, rather than approaching this very thorny issue piecemeal."
She said there were many "moving parts to be nailed down and many overlapping initiatives on the go", including the pensions dashboard, which is now expected - after a lengthy delay - to be implemented in April 2023.
Smith added: "We believe a more joined-up approach is needed across government, regulators and the pension dashboard programme to give simpler annual benefit statements a better chance of succeeding. Delaying the implementation date by a year to April 2023 allows more time for a more joined-up approach."
Members will receive a number of benefit statements from different pension administrators. It would be better for there to be consistency in format and content across all schemes.Greer Flanagan
Her comments on the eight-page consultation on the draft occupational and personal pension schemes (disclosure of information) (amendment) regulations 2022 were echoed by Greer Flanagan, senior consultant at Hymans Robertson.
Flanagan agreed the timescales needed to be better aligned with other government initiatives surrounding workplace pensions.
She said: "While we applaud the aims of the consultation, we also have some concerns around the proposed timescales.
"Allowing an extra year for this to be put in place would not only ensure it is implemented correctly but it will also enable these statements to be automated which would be a huge step forward."
Currently, the new length and format of the workplace pension benefit statements is expected to be brought in in April 2022.
According to the consultation, the new-look statements would be set out on just two sides of A4, and be sent to members (except those in receipt of benefits) of certain defined contribution workplace pension schemes used for automatic enrolment.
The proposed simpler annual benefit statement will enable a member to see:
- how much money the member has in their pension plan and what has been saved in the statement year,
- how much money they could have when they retire,
- what they could do to give themselves more money at retirement.
