Thanks to John Greenwood for publishing and thanks to my very dear friend Alan Chaplin for pointing out a couple of points that need clarifying. We are in the business of offering every DC saver a DB pension  and we guarantee our pension rates not that they will be 10-15% above annuities. Typically we expect our rates to exceed annuity rates by that much and we offer a price promise not to offer pensions where the annuity can provide a better deal.

All this needs saying because for every person who likes the idea of getting a DB pension with a prospect of surplus payments paid at Christmas, there will be another who finds the audacity of doing so an anathema…

If Edi Truell had been around at the time of Pope Gregor II, I’m sure he’d have been ex-communicated if not burned at the stake for being an heretic.

Machiavelli was similarly regarded in an ill-light, not least because he proposed change

But there are times when change is needed. Now is such a time.

The rare air of a DB pension

Next week I am going to put my feet up for a couple of days and listen to pension experts explain pensions to me on the banks of Loch Lomond. To my great delight, I have been invited to make a contribution towards the end and to submit some bullets on what  I am going to say. Here are my proposed bullets

• How can members tell if they are getting value for money from their pension?
• Can a strong covenant and a well funded scheme offer DC savers DB pensions?
• Is there a difference between an annuity and an occupational scheme pension?
• Do DC schemes have the duration or the risk-budget to offer long-term assets?

These are the questions that get me up in the morning and send me to sleep at night, I eat . breathe and dream pensions at the moment and never in my 63 years on this planet have I felt so enervated as I do today.

I am sorry that more of my readers cannot join me on the bonny banks but that’s the way of it. DG publishing are immensely kind to offer me this chance to learn , listen and ask questions of an audience that is more qualified than I to be at the gig.

But the EasyJet is booked and I am going to have the chance to compare the rare air of the Highlands with that of the Alps , from where I have recently returned. Getting old has its advantages, especially if you have the joy of a DB pension