“Its simple, the industry needs a focus on value as the ultimate outcome for members.  Incentives exploit the vulnerability that people currently have in a pension transfer process by steering them even further away from the most important things they should be considering when moving their hard earned money. We would like to see more onus on providers to deliver better member outcomes and banning incentives in the transfer process is a step in the right direction”.

These are the words of Patrick Heath-Lay and I agree with them. In the past year, People’s Partnership has got a largely new trustee board, a new CIO and a new responsible investment policy that looks as if it could move from being a commodity provider of auto-enrolment to the full service pension provider I’d like it to be.

The most important things that people should be considering when moving their money are the likely outcomes of the investment of their funds and future contributions and the capacity of their pension provider to offer them income in retirement as they need it. Add to this the proper stewardship of the money so that it matters and you have a model master trust. Whether it takes charges one way or another is a different matter, anomalies such as over net-pay are disappearing as will short term- advantage over Normal Minimum Pension Ages.

People’s and their CEO have made much of the NMPA advantage it has over its rivals (a drafting issue) and now it is making a lot of its low headline AMC. The race to the bottom on AMCs is likely to continue this summer .

In the light of all this, issues to do with incentives, that impact a small number of savers who are shopping around, is a sideshow. People will look out for special offers and short-term value – even with long-term retirement products. Incentives is so not an issue.

I hope that we move the debate away from arguments over the destination of pots to the outcomes from those pots. This is a job of work.

• Do people have an idea what outcomes they can expect from their workplace pension?
• Do they know what their normal way of turning pot to pension will be?
• Have they any idea how their money will be managed between now and retirement?
• Are people aware of the need to nominate a beneficiary while they build up their money and the choices they have to protect their loved ones once they start spending their money?

In my experience, most people don’t get the basics of their pensions and a lot of this has to do with us not laying out some simple guidelines of what will happen if people do nothing

1. they will be invested in a fund that is right for most people most of the time
2. they can expect to have a way of turning their pot to pension at retirement ( a work in progress)
3. they can expect to have their money invested in a way that is good for the planet, society and that the investments themselves are well run.

These are the things that really matter to people. People’s Partnership has yet to satisfy me that it is doing the best for its millions of members on these three aspects but they are now in the commercial position to do so having made such a success of managing auto-enrolment for the employers they look after.

The money People’s have secured though its peerless administration is secure, it may lose some money to inventive payers but that is trivial.

I would like to hear People’s talking about these things and not moaning about transfer incentives.

People’s entered this calendar year with £25bn under management, level with L&G and second only to Nest (£37bn). Now is the time for it to punch its weight