For a long time, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme website has had a dashboard. This website is a portal where you can view your pension fund and manage your membership of the scheme. Interestingly, in the Budget in 2018, the Chancellor confirmed that the state pension data should also be online, as part of a dashboard. The point of this portal will be to give you the opportunity to see all your pension funds in one place.
The current teacher’s pension scheme dashboard
The current My Teacher’s Pension dashboard has been available for a long time. This dashboard allows you direct control over your pension and will enable you to view any information relating to your future retirement.
The task manager is the most useful part of this teachers’ pension dashboard. It allows you to post applications for retirement, for a certificate of re-employment, for the opt-out application, and more. The overview is useful too, as is the messaging tool, which allows direct messaging from the scheme.
Plans
The plan is that there will be a new dashboard offered by the government that will include your state pension and other government-related funds. The Department for Work and Pensions are consulting on the design and are offering an additional £5million in funding. The hope is that the dashboard will be developed in 2019/20. The idea is to bring together all the critical information that the teacher needs to know and should help you plan more successfully for your retirement.
Why might this be interesting to you? Well, there are over 1.6 million unclaimed pensions in the UK. According to the Daily Express, these pensions total nearly £20 billion going unclaimed, as people are unaware that they have been enrolled and have made contributions to schemes.
This portal is an ambitious project, and there have already been mutterings from ministers that it might be scrapped. However, plans are still in place for delivering in 2019, and they claim there is excellent momentum.
What it will and won’t tell you
The current dashboard will already tell you about the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. The future dashboard should include your state pension, too. This will give you a detailed view of what you can expect when you retire. However, what it won’t tell you is your contributions to your Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) scheme. It is essential to keep this in mind when you are planning your retirement. Seeking a full picture of your pension and your options may still require insight from an independent financial advisor.
The content in this article was correct on 19th December 2018. You should not rely on this article to make important financial decisions. Teachers Financial Planning offers advice on My Teacher Pension Dashboard. Please use the contact form below to arrange an informal chat with an adviser and see how we can help you.