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By 31 October 2026, every UK occupational scheme in scope must be connected to the pensions dashboards ecosystem. Most already are. The Money and Pensions Service reported in May that more than 70 million records, roughly 85% of those in scope, were connected through almost 1,500 schemes and providers.
The public will not see a dashboard yet. The Pensions Dashboards Programme expects the MoneyHelper dashboard to open to users in the 2027/28 financial year. That leaves schemes with a window of several months in which they are connected and answerable, but not yet being searched by millions of people.
How a scheme uses that window will decide how the first year of public use goes. Dashboards will help members find their pensions. They will do nothing to help a scheme find its members.
What arrives in a find request
When someone searches on a dashboard, their identity is checked through GOV.UK One Login and a find request is sent to every connected scheme. According to the Pensions Regulator, that request can include the person's National Insurance number, previous names, addresses, email addresses and mobile numbers.
The scheme then compares that information with its own records. TPR expects many schemes to match on surname, date of birth and National Insurance number, and to widen the criteria where the data supports it.
This is where the condition of the scheme's records shows. A deferred member who married twenty years ago and never told the scheme carries a different surname to the one on file. A member recorded with a temporary National Insurance number will not match cleanly. A record with an old postcode cannot be used to raise confidence in a match. Each of these produces a possible match rather than a match, or no match at all.
TPR is direct about the risk of getting this wrong: "If your data is not reliable, you risk returning data for the wrong person."
The 30-day clock on possible matches
A possible match tells the member that the scheme may hold a pension for them and that they need to get in touch. From there, the member has 30 days to make contact. If they don't, or if the scheme cannot resolve the match in that time, the scheme must delete the personal information it received and deregister the pension identifier.
Consider what that means in practice. A member the scheme lost contact with in 2009 runs a search. They supply a current address, an email and a mobile number. The scheme returns a possible match. The member is busy, the message reads like admin, and 30 days pass.
The scheme is then required to delete the very contact details it has been missing for seventeen years.
Trustees should ask their administrator three questions before launch. How many possible matches do you expect, and on what assumptions? What route will members use to resolve them: a dedicated phone line, an online form, or a general inbox? And how much of that process is automated? LCP has warned that administrators' estimates of possible matches are only a rough guide, partly because users may not supply a National Insurance number at all.
Gone-away members move from the data score to the phone line
Today, a gone-away deferred member is mostly a data problem. They appear as a gap in the scheme's common data score, a line in the data improvement plan, perhaps an entry in a tracing batch every few years.
Once dashboards are public, some of those members will find the scheme on their own. They will then expect the scheme to act on what they find. That means confirming who they are, updating the record, providing a valid value within the statutory deadline (ten working days for defined benefit schemes, three for defined contribution), and in many cases answering the next question: when and how will I be paid?
For members who have passed normal retirement age without claiming, that question may involve arrears. For members who now live abroad, it involves paying into a non-UK bank account in a currency the scheme may not pay in today.
The size of this population is not trivial. The Pensions Policy Institute estimated in 2024 that 3.3 million pension pots worth £31.1bn were lost across the UK. Its 2026 survey, which for the first time includes defined benefit schemes, is due to report this month.
What dashboards will not tell you
Three things fall outside what a dashboard can do for a scheme, however well it works.
The first is death. Dashboards are used by living people. A member who has died will never run a search, so a scheme that relies on member-initiated contact to keep its records current will keep paying deceased pensioners until something else catches it. Mortality screening and existence checks remain the scheme's job, and members in care homes or living overseas are the groups standard screening most often misses.
The second is the members who never search. Dashboards are voluntary. The members least engaged with their pensions are the least likely to look, and they are often the same members the scheme has already lost.
The third is the address. Matching runs on identity data, and where no match is made the scheme must delete what it received. A dashboard does not hand the scheme a forwarding address for its gone-aways. Tracing still has to happen, and it is better done before launch than in response to it.
How to use the months before launch
The schemes that will handle public launch best are the ones that treat the connection deadline as the start of a data project rather than the end of a compliance one. None of the steps below will surprise an experienced administrator. The deadline attached to them is what has changed.
Trace deferred members with no confirmed address now, and verify the results that automated tracing leaves uncertain. Fix missing and temporary National Insurance numbers, which TPR names specifically in its guidance. Capture previous names and marital status where the record allows, since a surname mismatch is one of the most common routes to a possible match. Append email and mobile data, which TPR also suggests as part of a data improvement plan, so the scheme can contact members directly rather than waiting for them.
Run a mortality screen before dashboard volumes arrive, so the scheme is not returning value data on members who have died.
Then write it down. TPR expects schemes to keep a record of their matching policy, the criteria chosen, the reasons for them and any changes, for at least six years from the end of the scheme year in which each decision is made. A scheme that has traced, screened and documented its approach is in a far stronger position if a mismatch is ever challenged.
Where the payment fits
Dashboards end at the point where a member knows the pension exists. The scheme's obligation continues until the right amount reaches the right person.
That last step is where fragmented data causes the most damage. If tracing sits with one supplier, mortality screening with another and payment with a third, the scheme has three records of the same member and no single view of whether the person it has just found is the person it is about to pay. When a dashboard brings a long-lost member back into contact, the trustee's question is simple: can we show that we verified this person, confirmed their details and paid them correctly?
Navro connects member tracing, mortality screening and beneficiary identification to payment execution on one platform, with one audit trail from the first existence check to the payment confirmation. See how member data tracing works with Navro.
Frequently asked questions
When is the pensions dashboards connection deadline?
All occupational pension schemes in scope must be connected to the pensions dashboards ecosystem by 31 October 2026. Schemes have connected in stages by size and type, and the regulator expects each scheme to meet its staging date and the final deadline.
When will pensions dashboards be available to the public?
The Pensions Dashboards Programme expects the MoneyHelper dashboard to be available to the public in the 2027/28 financial year. Commercial dashboards are expected to follow later.
What is a possible match on a pensions dashboard?
A possible match is returned when a scheme finds a record that may belong to the person searching but cannot confirm it with enough confidence, for example when the National Insurance number and date of birth match but the surname does not. The member is told to contact the scheme and has 30 days to do so. If the match is not resolved in that time, the scheme must delete the personal information and deregister the pension identifier.
Do pension schemes need up-to-date member addresses for dashboards?
Matching relies mainly on identity data such as surname, date of birth and National Insurance number, so an address is not always needed to make a match. Accurate addresses and contact details still matter, because they raise match confidence, reduce possible matches and let the scheme contact members once they are found. Dashboards do not give schemes forwarding addresses for members they have lost.
Do pensions dashboards replace member tracing and mortality screening?
No. Dashboards only help members who choose to search. They do not identify members who have died, and they do not trace members who never use a dashboard. Schemes still need regular tracing, existence checks and mortality screening to keep records accurate and avoid overpayments.
What should trustees ask their administrator before dashboards go live?
Trustees should ask how many possible matches the administrator expects, how members will resolve them within the 30-day window, how value data will be produced within the statutory deadlines, and what tracing and screening has been done on deferred members with no confirmed address.
Sources: The Pensions Regulator: Pensions dashboards initial guidance · The Pensions Regulator: Matching people with their pensions · AJ Bell: Over 70 million pension records connected (May 2026) · LexisNexis: MoneyHelper dashboard expected in 2027/28 (May 2026) · LCP: So you've connected to pensions dashboards, what next? · Pensions Age: PPI launches Lost Pensions 2026 survey
