“Insufficient testing” was one of three reasons for the delay and reset of the pensions dashboard plan, according to pensions minister Laura Trott.
Speaking at an evidence session this week (July 12), Trott discussed the reasoning for the Department for Work and Pensions’ plans to introduce pensions dashboards and the need for the implementation delay.
She said: “It was the issue that we had around the connection process, which was needing more work in terms of the industry and there was insufficient testing in terms of the actual architecture itself.
“We needed more time to ensure that it was robust.”
Simon McKinnon, former chief digital and information officer at DWP, was also at the session and explained that while the fundamental work was going well, it had a fixed deadline of having to start connections.
“It was clear it wasn't gonna be able to meet those timescales,” he said.
“We've done a detailed assessment of all aspects of the current programme and they are sound, the architecture will work, there has just not been sufficient time for them to complete the build, and to do the detailed technical testing, security testing, but most importantly, user testing that it requires.”
McKinnon said as part of the reset for the dashboard, DWP will need to fill the team.
“It's got gaps in so at the moment, we're currently doing a detailed resource model by the end of the summer and that'll determine what additional resources it needs,” he said.
“We're talking about less than a dozen people, some of which we hope to get from DWP to come and support the technical aspects of the programme.”
Trott argued that the pensions dashboard has a very important role as there are a large number of deferred small pots.
“Pensions dashboard will play a vital role in reconnecting people with lost pots,” she said.
“In addition, giving people more of an idea of what they are likely to have in retirement because it's very difficult.
“People have an average 11 small pots, they don't really know what that means for them in terms of what their retirement income is likely to be.
“The pensions dashboard will play a really important role in bringing that all together and also allowing people to see this alongside their state pension to get a full picture of what it's going to look like for their retirement.”
Meanwhile, the pensions minister was also quizzed on the DWP figures last week which revealed that individuals may have been underpaid about £1bn in state pension payments due to missing information in their national insurance records.
She said: “Obviously any errors are unacceptable and I recognise the huge impact this has on people's lives, which is why it's absolutely incumbent on us to get it right.
“It's also a matter of huge upset to me that this has primarily affected women, which is not okay and so we're doing what we can we're working on this particular new round with HM Revenue & Customs.
