MT heads of @UKMercer and @smartpensionuk . Who is the lion- who the lamb! #plsaannual24 pic.twitter.com/lLWa1VOtc0
— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) October 18, 2024
I was invited to the Conference as a freelance journalist as I have been , these past few years. The last time I visited Liverpool with the PLSA, I was on a panel discussing topical pension issues in the eye of the LDI crisis three years ago, I am a fan of the idea of the Conference and its execution.
I have some feedback which could go into the hopper of feedback forms or could be shared with people reading my blogs, including the PLSA and delegates, I’d like to share it openly. It is almost all good.
The Conference is enervating and worthwhile as an event
The 1300 delegates and the many people there who were involved as exhibitioners created a community over three days which was greater than what was said in sessions, or in the exhibition or in the evening entertainment. The community congregated and dispersed like a murmuring of starlings and it was mightily impressive.
There is a new idea (well actually an old idea but now being exploited by some large companies) that a fringe of non-participating companies can run what they call “fringe” events , but are actually detracting from the murmuration.
Getting back to the business of paying pensions.
The business of this Conference is “pensions”, but you would have thought it was about anything else for long stretches of the sessions offered us. The concept of “financial well-being” took up large swathes of the full day of conference, from the opening session on attracting young savers , through sessions on inclusion and how we talk about holistic financial planning and endless liturgies on engagement and the dashboard.
The public don’t give a fig about this stuff, they want to know that when they are knackered and fed up with work, there is a wage for them, that lasts as long as they do.
We can spend as much time as we like, considering their financial well-being but they want us to get on with the job in our hands, to pay them this wage.
My feedback is that future conferences think more about the pension and less about matters that may be of interest but are indeed “fringe events”. Financial well-being is not what this conference about.
My third observation is that the conference needs “sharing”
I am looking on twitter and bluesky at the posts that include the conference hashtag #plsaannual24 . There are perhaps 5 people who used this hashtag regularly, The PLSA, TPR, Stephen Scholefield and me used twitter, on Bluesky there is not one post using this hashtag (despite Steve Webb’s promotion).
LCP have been running a podcast from their stand and this does give some actuality to the event to those outside it, but frankly the social outreach of the conference is pretty weak.
Here is my episode
There are also episodes with Kate Grant, Will Sandbrook and Dan Mikulskis on this link.
What worked best?
The best session for me came on the final day and was not a plenary (it should have been). It was introduced by WTW’s Rash Bhabra and featured outstanding contributions from Marisa Hall and Paul Todd. It was chaired by Ruari Grant who is the PLSA’s outstanding Chair. It had great questions from John Chilman (who solicited a promise that WTW would try to adopt innovation into Lifesight in time) and it could have lasted twice as long as it did.
It worked, but sadly I did not see a video camera in the room and I fear it will not be shared (see above).
It worked better than the big set pieces with Emma Reynolds and Harriet Harman because it wasn’t scripted and was not in the grip of compliance officers. Paul Todd in particular is to be congratulated for speaking his mind and clearly elucidating what the public want better than anyone else in the three days.
I am pleased that the app did not dominate as it did in previous years and that people could ask questions from the floor.
The app worked for me in a number of ways and it is a lasting record for me of what I saw, who I met and what I valued.
The Conference worked and worked well, the organisation was superb and there was hardly a blip in its smooth running from start to finish. Emma Douglas led with great panache and the conference dinner was blinding.
Despite my gripes , my overwhelming feeling is that the PLSA conference is alive and well. Next year will mark 30 years since my first one and I hope I will be there in October 2025.