“A week is a long time in politics”, or so the old saying goes and, whilst this may be true for those in Westminster, I’m beginning to think they have nothing on those of us in the pensions industry who have experienced yet another hectic week.

From “eye-watering” unclaimed tax relief to “tidal waves” of demand for buyouts, it has been rather an eventful week, but the biggest news concerned dashboards.

Thursday saw the announcement of a “reset” of the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) which will leave the framework for dashboards unchanged but will see the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) legislate to provide new connection deadlines, with further information on the revised timeline to be made available following an agreement on PDP’s delivery plan.

The news was greeted with a strong reaction from the industry with technology partner to the PDP, Equisoft products director, Nick Meredith, describing the news as “disappointing” but “not surprising” and LCP partner, while former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, described the delay as “deeply frustrating”.

Dashboards was not the only issue to hit the headlines this week, as it was revealed that more then £25bn of bulk annuity transactions were completed between pension schemes and insurers in 2022, around £12bn of which was secured in the first half of the year.

This performance led to industry experts suggesting that the buy-in market could exceed £50bn every year for the foreseeable future, with a “tidal wave” of demand expected following recent funding improvements.

Social issues also received increased recognition this week, with the launch of a Taskforce on Social Factors following the DWP's consultation on consideration of social risks and opportunities by occupational pension schemes.

Tax issues have also been brought to the fore ahead of the spring budget, with a number of industry organisations backing calls for the government to review the Money Purchase Annual Allowance.

Industry resarch also revealed that the UK’s top earners missed out on an “eye-watering” £1.3bn in unclaimed tax relief between 2016/17 and 2020/21, despite a year-on-year fall in the number of taxpayers.

This week also saw the Pension Administration Standards Association (Pasa) publish guidance for pension scheme trustees and managers on data readiness for buy-in and buyout transactions, stating that it was “crucial” for trustees and managers to maintain the highest standards of data quality.

News on the gender pensions gap was also reported this week as it was revealed that gap between the pension contributions of men and women widened “significantly” from age 35 onwards.

It was also revealed that self-employed workers saving into a pension rarely change the contribution amounts they make, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, with 49 per cent of those saving in two consecutive years are saving the same amount a year later.

As another fast-paced and turbulent week in the world of pensions comes to an end all we can do is take the time to reflect on all the big developments of the past five days, before Monday almost certainly brings even more news.

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