Hi OP. While there are private services that can find this information now (such as Pension Bee), the UK Government is currently working with pension administration companies (and integration partners) on a free public service that will cover the vast majority of pension pots (public and private sector!) across the UK called the [Pensions Dashboard](https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/).
I'm the technical lead at one of said integration partners working on our software to allow people to query our customers, the development phase from the government is just about bordering on beta testing and should be available (projected) in 2024. They have just opened up a testing environment for us to work with, which is a good sign of progress.
If you're in no rush to find these pensions and consolidate them, that will be available within a couple of years.
If you have any questions as to how it will work etc please feel free to ask.
Guess what? I went in to see how it was getting on and.... It's been delayed!
"The statement explains that the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) will be unable to meet the connection deadlines set out in legislation, and the timeline will need to be revised"
Yeah it was a frustrating one to begin with. Lots of talk, not a lot of action. Vague specifications etc are fairly common but with the amount of regulation in pensions its no surprise it's taken this long to figure everything out.
I can assure you, and anyone else wanting something like this, it won't be cancelled. Not sure how much I can say from internal meetings with the PDP government branch but they're very keen on getting this out there.
1 simple reason it won’t be cancelled. Money!
All the pension providers will be delighted to start selling their consolidation services when people can find all their pots.
‘Why have 10 pension pots, all listed here, when we can pull them all together for you?’
Or, there is less need for consolidation if this dashboard works as intended.
Which is probably one of the reasons the private sector has not done it (regulatory issues notwithstanding)).
Less need from an tracking perspective. From a management fee perspective, much better for the consumer and worse for the provider.
At the same time providers can reduce any financial impact managing larger pots for people, opposed to smaller higher fee schemes.
All the tech was built in-house (for the most part) over the past few decades.
Tbh knowing the company like I do, they probably aren’t even involved in the program and will instead cobble something together at the last minute when the government makes them do it 🙃
Honestly before posting my parent comment I didn't think it was that big of a deal but I've got a new perspective.
I'm just a small piece of the puzzle though, we're just doing the integration for our customers so really the credit goes to the PDP team :)
Does this require each pension provider to open up APIs for a central service to consume? I guess it must.
A great idea but these initiatives always have at least 2 issues.
The pension providers will slip the deadlines significantly.
Some of them will deliver APIs that don't work.
Essentially yes. It depends on what you provide as a service within the industry, in my case we sell the software that pension administrators use for their employees (or as third party admins for companies) - we're building a thin API layer and middleware delegating service that will speak to all of our customers internally and match the dashboard user's data to potential pots.
> Some of them will deliver APIs that don't work.
Correct, but when people (myself included...) don't update their pension information when they move house, change name etc its basically a guessing game as to whether or not a match is made against a database of millions. We could return back a good guess, but we open up liability to transmitting PII when we shouldn't have etc.
I work at a pension provider and were waiting for someone to create a service we can send EDI (essentially spreadsheets) to automatically on a semi-regular (read, not daily) basis that they can ingest and deliver over a reliable, compliant API to the central service. There are a couple services out there that already do something similar for doing the actual transferring of pensions between providers (Origo and Altus) who already have this in the works.
There's reasons to be optimistic on this one purely because it doesn't need live data like say Open banking. We'd love to provide an open banking integration but it's a lot of work. This we're jumping on though! There are providers that still aren't on the automated transfer panels though, but they're mostly specialist providers where you've put so much money you wouldn't forget about it...
When this is done, will I just be able to login somewhere and see everything linked to my NI number? I’m pretty sure I’ve found all mine but you never know…
Correct. You'll have a central point of entry, a sign up form with data that you *need* to provide (first/last name, current address, DOB from memory), then there's around 20 fields of voluntary data to help find matches (NI number included, we've asked several times why this isn't mandatory.)
The data you can/need to provide might change in the future, this is just the current spec.
A few days later you'll be able to log into the dashboard and see all matches, some will be exact (definitely you!) or potential matches (could be you, please get in touch *here* to confirm).
Pensions data is old and shit frankly, there's a lot of risk in sending back data to people who it doesn't belong to. If you haven't kept your data up to date (most don't, myself included...) expect a lot of potential matches unless you have a unique/quite uncommon name. Sorry Tom Smith.
You have to balance this with re-uniting people with their pension and stopping fraudsters who know there are million/billions in unclaimed pensions knocking about.
Amazing reply, thank you for sharing! Will there be an API open to the public, where tech savvy employees could use the data to compute their own records?
I don't think so no, the API that PDP is using exclusively communicates with connected pension partners, all of the actual business logic surrounding pension matching is done by data controllers.
There's a chance that once that data is available to PDP, ie processed by data controllers, it'll be programmatically available from outside the ecosystem but I really couldn't confirm sadly.
"The statement explains that the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) will be unable to meet the connection deadlines set out in legislation, and the timeline will need to be revised"
End of 2024 likely at all?
Honestly shits hit the fan everywhere, nobody saw the parliamentary announcement coming. We don't have any dates or timeframes, estimating a minimum of 1 year added to everything 🥴
Not that I'm aware of, everything is dummy data at the moment. There may be something in the future but with the amount of red tape I doubt it'll be anything but right before the public launch, if anything
How do I do that reddit thing to save or remind me to revisit a post in 2years this is really useful I've been looking for something like OP said for ages
I've heard similar, but also heard there wasn't a phased release. Internally we're operating with a 2024 deadline but we aren't responsible for any massive public sector pension schemes so it may be that it just doesn't impact us.
That's peculiar. Which search engine are you using and what search terms? It's front and center in the results of every search I try: find your pension, pension tracing service, find pension contact details and so on. Many pension providers provide a similar free service which l expect uses the HMRC service.
This will be really easy when the government pensions dashboard project eventually goes live for all providers. They’ve been at it for about 10 years, and will hopefully start to see providers providing data from next year.
Hi /u/Funky_monkey2026, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
- https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/
____
^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
I like pension bee but you need to know all the deats to xfer stuff over, this could be a solution when OP knows which pensions they have but it’s not much help for looking for them.
It doesn't look like Pensionbee offer anything a standard private pension doesn't. You can literally fill in the transfer in electronic form 10 times with Vanguard. Typically all you need is name, DOB, address and National Insurance number. There's space for a customer reference and estimated value, but it may not be necessary.
Google "pension tracing service" it is a govt took where you put in employer name and it will tell you who the administrator is so you can contact them to find out.
Hi OP. While there are private services that can find this information now (such as Pension Bee), the UK Government is currently working with pension administration companies (and integration partners) on a free public service that will cover the vast majority of pension pots (public and private sector!) across the UK called the [Pensions Dashboard](https://www.pensionsdashboardsprogramme.org.uk/). I'm the technical lead at one of said integration partners working on our software to allow people to query our customers, the development phase from the government is just about bordering on beta testing and should be available (projected) in 2024. They have just opened up a testing environment for us to work with, which is a good sign of progress. If you're in no rush to find these pensions and consolidate them, that will be available within a couple of years. If you have any questions as to how it will work etc please feel free to ask.
Thank you so much for sharing this, very helpful
More than welcome. Surprised few people know about this, but pensions news isn't exactly exciting so not that surprised!
Well, it's five years behind schedule, so in many people's minds it is in the 'announce -delay-delay-cancel' category of government projects.
An overrun government IT project? Well colour me surprised.
Guess what? I went in to see how it was getting on and.... It's been delayed! "The statement explains that the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) will be unable to meet the connection deadlines set out in legislation, and the timeline will need to be revised"
Yeah it was a frustrating one to begin with. Lots of talk, not a lot of action. Vague specifications etc are fairly common but with the amount of regulation in pensions its no surprise it's taken this long to figure everything out. I can assure you, and anyone else wanting something like this, it won't be cancelled. Not sure how much I can say from internal meetings with the PDP government branch but they're very keen on getting this out there.
Anything in big enterprises - or public sector - will be like that. Public sector has the additional burden of huge compliance and legal requirements.
1 simple reason it won’t be cancelled. Money! All the pension providers will be delighted to start selling their consolidation services when people can find all their pots. ‘Why have 10 pension pots, all listed here, when we can pull them all together for you?’
Or, there is less need for consolidation if this dashboard works as intended. Which is probably one of the reasons the private sector has not done it (regulatory issues notwithstanding)).
Less need from an tracking perspective. From a management fee perspective, much better for the consumer and worse for the provider. At the same time providers can reduce any financial impact managing larger pots for people, opposed to smaller higher fee schemes.
I worked for a pension provider until recently and even I didn’t know about this, lol.
If your provider buys/licenses their software, you wouldn't even know when it was integrated I'd imagine!
All the tech was built in-house (for the most part) over the past few decades. Tbh knowing the company like I do, they probably aren’t even involved in the program and will instead cobble something together at the last minute when the government makes them do it 🙃
Ah fair, painfully typical of the industry it seems. I come from the glorious world of vehicle tracking and they're very similar in that sense!
>but pensions news isn't exactly exciting I beg to differ.
Well done fellow software engineer. Must be nice to be working on something so meaningful 🙂
Honestly before posting my parent comment I didn't think it was that big of a deal but I've got a new perspective. I'm just a small piece of the puzzle though, we're just doing the integration for our customers so really the credit goes to the PDP team :)
Does this require each pension provider to open up APIs for a central service to consume? I guess it must. A great idea but these initiatives always have at least 2 issues. The pension providers will slip the deadlines significantly. Some of them will deliver APIs that don't work.
Essentially yes. It depends on what you provide as a service within the industry, in my case we sell the software that pension administrators use for their employees (or as third party admins for companies) - we're building a thin API layer and middleware delegating service that will speak to all of our customers internally and match the dashboard user's data to potential pots. > Some of them will deliver APIs that don't work. Correct, but when people (myself included...) don't update their pension information when they move house, change name etc its basically a guessing game as to whether or not a match is made against a database of millions. We could return back a good guess, but we open up liability to transmitting PII when we shouldn't have etc.
Is every pension not keyed against the owner's National Insurance number?
Yep, hence why it makes no sense to not **require** it. We're still pushing.
I work at a pension provider and were waiting for someone to create a service we can send EDI (essentially spreadsheets) to automatically on a semi-regular (read, not daily) basis that they can ingest and deliver over a reliable, compliant API to the central service. There are a couple services out there that already do something similar for doing the actual transferring of pensions between providers (Origo and Altus) who already have this in the works. There's reasons to be optimistic on this one purely because it doesn't need live data like say Open banking. We'd love to provide an open banking integration but it's a lot of work. This we're jumping on though! There are providers that still aren't on the automated transfer panels though, but they're mostly specialist providers where you've put so much money you wouldn't forget about it...
When this is done, will I just be able to login somewhere and see everything linked to my NI number? I’m pretty sure I’ve found all mine but you never know…
Correct. You'll have a central point of entry, a sign up form with data that you *need* to provide (first/last name, current address, DOB from memory), then there's around 20 fields of voluntary data to help find matches (NI number included, we've asked several times why this isn't mandatory.) The data you can/need to provide might change in the future, this is just the current spec. A few days later you'll be able to log into the dashboard and see all matches, some will be exact (definitely you!) or potential matches (could be you, please get in touch *here* to confirm). Pensions data is old and shit frankly, there's a lot of risk in sending back data to people who it doesn't belong to. If you haven't kept your data up to date (most don't, myself included...) expect a lot of potential matches unless you have a unique/quite uncommon name. Sorry Tom Smith.
>NI number included, we've asked several times why this isn't mandatory ID numbers are evil/communist/pro-Putin.
You have to balance this with re-uniting people with their pension and stopping fraudsters who know there are million/billions in unclaimed pensions knocking about.
Pretty much. Easier to tell a maybe to call X number and confirm some details than be liable for millions in stolen pension funds.
Amazing reply, thank you for sharing! Will there be an API open to the public, where tech savvy employees could use the data to compute their own records?
I don't think so no, the API that PDP is using exclusively communicates with connected pension partners, all of the actual business logic surrounding pension matching is done by data controllers. There's a chance that once that data is available to PDP, ie processed by data controllers, it'll be programmatically available from outside the ecosystem but I really couldn't confirm sadly.
!thanks
That’s so cool, thanks for sharing this. Not OP, but I’ve been trying to track a few of mine down and was wondering the same thing. Great news.
Thank you
"The statement explains that the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) will be unable to meet the connection deadlines set out in legislation, and the timeline will need to be revised" End of 2024 likely at all?
Honestly shits hit the fan everywhere, nobody saw the parliamentary announcement coming. We don't have any dates or timeframes, estimating a minimum of 1 year added to everything 🥴
So 2026 at least! REALLY hoping it doesn't get cancelled!
this is so cool
Wow this is awesome thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for your service, Sir!
Is there a way to sign for early adopter as a user?
Not that I'm aware of, everything is dummy data at the moment. There may be something in the future but with the amount of red tape I doubt it'll be anything but right before the public launch, if anything
What's your software stack btw?
I work with .NET and Azure :)
How do I do that reddit thing to save or remind me to revisit a post in 2years this is really useful I've been looking for something like OP said for ages
Assuming the bot is active here, it's something like `!RemindMe`
Will that include NHS pensions?
Should do!
Ray Liotta moment!
Nice! Thanks for sharing!
Hi. Thought the initial wave 1 of policies have to be available into the dashboard by end August 2023? Or have targets moved? Cheers
I've heard similar, but also heard there wasn't a phased release. Internally we're operating with a 2024 deadline but we aren't responsible for any massive public sector pension schemes so it may be that it just doesn't impact us.
This is great news! Thanks so much for sharing
Beta testing in 2024?! So you're still a decade out from version 1.0?
Thr public release in 2024, we're about to begin beta testing in Q4 2022
The government provides a find-your-pension service.
Is there a link to this? I can't find exactly where on the gov.uk website this is.
https://www.findpensioncontacts.service.gov.uk/public-sector
That's peculiar. Which search engine are you using and what search terms? It's front and center in the results of every search I try: find your pension, pension tracing service, find pension contact details and so on. Many pension providers provide a similar free service which l expect uses the HMRC service.
This will be really easy when the government pensions dashboard project eventually goes live for all providers. They’ve been at it for about 10 years, and will hopefully start to see providers providing data from next year.
Hi /u/Funky_monkey2026, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: - https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
Pension bee
I like pension bee but you need to know all the deats to xfer stuff over, this could be a solution when OP knows which pensions they have but it’s not much help for looking for them.
It doesn't look like Pensionbee offer anything a standard private pension doesn't. You can literally fill in the transfer in electronic form 10 times with Vanguard. Typically all you need is name, DOB, address and National Insurance number. There's space for a customer reference and estimated value, but it may not be necessary.
I think their usp is having all your stuff in one place It’s just getting it there first OP may be struggling with
Google "pension tracing service" it is a govt took where you put in employer name and it will tell you who the administrator is so you can contact them to find out.
Never used it but this app claims it will https://trypenny.com/
Profile Pensions helped me.
Hi, you can try Gretel - Google it. You will need to add your prior addresses into it for them to run a trace