The pensions dashboard cannot come quickly enough, according to Portafina, with the pension advice specialist saying that one in 10 workers do not know if they have a pension from a previous job.

Following a study of workers’ awareness of their overall pension savings, Portafina has also said that the majority of workers do not know how to access details of former workplace pensions.

Three-quarters (76 per cent) of those surveyed by the company admit that they have not collated all the details of past pensions, while more than a third (38 per cent) are unable to find paperwork for their old pension schemes.

Portafina managing director, Jamie Smith-Thompson, said that the study — along with ONS calculations saying that the UK has 1.6 million lost pensions —showed that the discussions over the pensions dashboard cannot drag on indefinitely.

“While the Queen has made the promising announcement that measures will be brought forward to provide simpler oversight of pension savings, with no government majority to pass a pensions bill, a level of uncertainty continues to surround when exactly Brits can expect the launch of a dashboard,” she said.

“The longer the pensions dashboard saga drags on, the more people remain in the dark about their pension savings. Until it is resolved, there is a danger that the already staggering amount of lost and unclaimed pensions could continue to rise."

She has also pointed out that old, unmanaged pensions could be suffering from high charges and poor performance, with the problem set to be exacerbated by poor knowledge of how auto-enrolment works.

Three in ten people questioned by Portfina said that they wrongly expect their former employer to pass on their workplace pension details to their new employer.

In addition, only a quarter of people correctly identified that their new employer would set them up a new workplace pension and that it would be their responsibility to manage old pensions.

Portafina has said that two-thirds of savers support the creation of a pensions dashboard.

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