Technology that is right for pensioners!

Good afternoon. I am listening to the last minutes of the Covenant Service broadcast from City Road and picked up by me in Shaftesbury. Many members of the congregation are able to be a part of what we see and listen to. We cannot sip wine or eat bread but we can get the benefit of watching others we know, doing so.

I will suppose that I am not alone in being unable to get into the City for physical reasons. Listening to the service, my mind wandered off to the way that the NHS wants to do the same thing, interact with patients through their device.

I have read on the BBC website that the BMA and other organisations  have complained that improving the NHS App is excluding who don’t get online. We must accept that some people do not want to be online and others can’t. But we know that there are people who can help them, if they want to be helped and those who have no support can find a way for the future. I agree with Minister Wes Streeting when he said to Laura Kuenssberg

“Don’t say we need to sort out adult social care and then knock down every proposal that meaningfully looks to address it,”

At this stage we see this initiative in the light of failures in the past but that is not the way to address the intention. Nor can we treat the work of Reeves and Reynolds on pension reform as trivial.

Here is one of my correspondents on what he/she wants.

I hope the analysis which DWP will do perhaps together with others will show that

(1) nothing much has to be done for low to median earners and households.  Basic pension plus housing and council tax if needed plus Pension Credit with health additions if needed is fine.  AE provides a pot with some flexibility around early retirement (a little only as don’t want much of that) and for some fun and emergencies.

(2) the best off, probably top 20% plus those with less but decent DB are all fine.

(3) the  key point is about the rest. I suspect any proper analysis of adequacy shows this is where AE lies and is inadequate relative to expectations, hopes, and dreams.

Perhaps also relative to their parents. (I think of my kids).  As a comment  says, they want it all. They have been fed a diet of freedom and guarantee with rarely any comments on longevity risk. Not just having a sensible view of expected retired lifetime, but the risks of exceeding it materially.  The pensions experts and thinking has given way to the asset managers.

If the middle swathe of people want to have more “comfort”, then yes, they need to save more and how that is done is the essence of my stage 2 and 3. How much more for them does the government require and how much incentivise.  And how much guarantee and freedom with each.

This is the kind of text speech I get from this genius person. He talks to me in his 70s from his phone. Like me and my 92 year old mother, he/she uses the ether to talk.

And I  can extract the following.

1. We should not create a pension framework for the 20% who have go0d SIPPs, or DB or both. They do not need to be antagonised, they can be left alone
2. We should not force those on low incomes to feel they will rely on DC savings, they have an improving state pension, a proper pension credit system and require a proper healthcare.
3. We need to define the population in the middle, those who cannot go private and those who can’t meet bills because they have no money
4. We can use technology to establish what to do and who to do it with.

The problem is being eased for us and for Government , both in terms of Wes Streeting’s and Emma Reynolds deliver. The NHS app, the DWP Pension Dashboard.

Technology is making it easier for those who cannot get to church to get value from services. I. thanks to Kings College London , already have an app called My Chart which is helping me manage my life. I hope the NHS can roll this out to the middle group.

And I hope that the pension dashboard will become available to all next year.

Technology is crucial to the improvement of our spiritual, physical and mental and financial health- especially in later life.

Let’s not lose site of the importance of us knowing our resources and Government knowing the challenges we bring it. Technology is delivering and why I am more confident that we will get it right over the next 20 years.